The Department of Justice has announced (here and here) that a former district director of the IRS has plead guilty to tax fraud:

A former IRS district director, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to defraud the United States through his involvement in a tax fraud scheme promoted by the Topeka, Kansas-based “Renaissance, The Tax People, Inc. … Jesse Ayala Cota admitted defrauding the U.S. Treasury of more than $1.3 million and to earning more than $300,000 from his participation in the scheme.

Cota, 65, of Vista, Calif., admitted in his plea agreement that from 1997 though April 2002, the conspirators, through Renaissance, operated a scheme to defraud the government and individuals by marketing a program designed to sell illegal tax deductions through false and misleading representations. … Cota also admitted that he and his co-conspirators falsely assured their clients and others that Renaissance’s tax system was legal. Cota acknowledged that on Oct.16, 2000, a co-conspirator sent an e-mail message to customers falsely asserting that there existed written endorsements from “over 2,000 tax attorneys, enrolled agents and CPAs (certified public accountants) that every strategy contained in the Tax Relief System is absolutely sound, unassailable and proven over the past 40 years.” The e-mail also falsely claimed that “[t]he training offered by Renaissance, the Tax People, through the Tax Relief System . . . was approved for continuing education credit for CPAs in all 50 states.”

(Hat Tip:  Ellen Podgor.)  For more, see Joe Kristan.