How will the case against creationist Kent Hovind turn out?

[Questioninggeller]

Kent Hovind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_hovind) is charged with 58 federal counts (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind_faces_a_58-count_federal_indictment) including filing a frivolous lawsuits, false complaints, making threats against investigators and those cooperating with the investigation, and includes failing to pay $473,818 in employee-related taxes. What are some proposed outcomes?

I ask because this is in the news:
ISLEY SENTENCED TO THREE YEARS FOR TAX EVASION

Soul singer RONALD ISLEY (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Isley) was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday (01SEP06) for tax evasion. The ISLEY BROTHERS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isley_Brothers) legend, who was also ordered to pay $3.1 million (GBP1.7 million) to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), engaged in a "pervasive, long-term, pathological" evasion of federal taxes, according to Los Angeles US District Court Judge DEAN PREGERSON. The 65-year-old was found guilty of five counts of tax evasion and one count of willful failure to file a tax return last October (05), and returned to court to discover his fate yesterday. During last year's three-week trial, prosecutors contended Isley failed to make any payments to the IRS between 1976 and 1996.


Source: Contactmusic.com Sept 2, 2006 (http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/isley%20sentenced%20to%20three%20years%20for%20tax %20evasion_1007105)

During a hearing Friday, defense attorney Anthony Alexander argued that the 65-year-old singer should receive probation instead of prison time because of complications from a stroke and a recent bout with kidney cancer. Isley is expected to be sent to a prison hospital facility.
Alexander also pleaded for leniency because Isley had been attempting to pay down his IRS debt.
...
Alexander argued during trial that "unfortunate circumstances," such as the deaths of two of Isley's accountants, made him unable to get records together and pay taxes during the years that led to the criminal charges.



Source: ABC News Sept 2, 2006 (http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=2387600&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312)

[Mojo]

Jury selection begins today (http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/NEWS01/610170326/1006). Hovind appears before U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers. If jury selection is completed in time today, opening remarks from the prosecution and defense could take place.

[Questioninggeller]

Just caught this:

A jury has been selected in the trial of Pensacola evangelist Kent Hovind, who is charged with 58 counts of tax fraud.

Opening remarks will begin at 3:15 p.m. before U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers.


Pensacola News Journal, October, 17, 2006
(http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/NEWS01/61017007)

[fishbait]

Pensacola News Journal, October, 17, 2006
(http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/NEWS01/61017007)He called his employees "volunteers," "missionaries" or "ministers," she said. Wages were referred to as "gifts" or "love offerings."

Employees then became responsible for paying Hovind's portion of the income tax, she said.What a sleezeball. I hope they nail him good!

[scotth]

I can't wait to hear Kent's 'Bubba' stories when he gets out of the pen.

bwah ha ha

[Questioninggeller]

...
Prosecutor Michelle Heldmeyer said Hovind, also known as "Dr. Dino," failed to pay about $470,000 in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes for his ministry employees between March 31, 2001, and Jan. 31, 2004.

She said Jo Hovind contributed to the fraud by withdrawing thousands of dollars in cash from the ministry's bank account so the money could not be traced. She made 45 transactions in a little more than a year, sometimes taking out as much as $9,500 at a time. Banks are required to report cash withdrawals that exceed $10,000.

"The Hovinds ran a business," Heldmeyer told the jury. "All employers are required to contribute to those systems."
...
Heldmeyer said from 1999 to March 2004, the Hovinds took in more than $5 million.
...
Employees then became responsible for paying Hovind's portion of the income tax, she said.

And though the Hovinds refer to their business as a ministry, it's not affiliated with a church, she said.

"It's not a church," she said. "But that doesn't matter, because a church still has to pay payroll tax."

Hovind attempted to manipulate funds from the start of his ministry, she said.

In 1996, he filed for bankruptcy, a move Heldmeyer said Hovind designed to prevent the IRS from collecting taxes.

The IRS later determined Hovind filed under an "evil purpose," Heldmeyer said.
...


Full article: Evangelist's trial begins, Pensacola News Journal October, 18, 2006 (http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061018/NEWS01/610180337/1006)

[patchbunny]

I can't wait to hear Kent's 'Bubba' stories when he gets out of the pen.

bwah ha ha
Shouldn't be that bad if he can get Wesley Snipes to bunk with him. :)

[Mojo]

Workers testify in 'Dr. Dino' trial (http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061019/NEWS01/610190338/1006)

[Zep]

I do hope someone is getting this all down for a book. I'd buy it!

[Mojo]

I'm still waiting for the book of the Dover Panda Trial.

And the film.

[Questioninggeller]

The latest today:

Two people who worked for a Pensacola evangelist testified Wednesday in federal court that they didn't consider where they worked to be a church.
...
Popp testified that Hovind warned employees not to accept mail addressed to "KENT HOVIND." He said Hovind told the workers the government created a corporation in his "all-caps name." Hovind said if he accepted the mail, he would be accepting the responsibilities associated with that corporation, Popp testified.
...
"There was sometimes a difference between memos and how we'd actually operate," he said.

Although Popp considered himself a minister at the time of his employment, he said Hovind's ministry isn't a church.
...
She received her hourly wage of $10 in a weekly paycheck, she punched a time clock, had 10 paid vacation days and considered herself an employee, not a missionary as a few others called themselves, she said.

Cooksey testified she never received a W-2 or 1099 tax form for the money she made.


Full article: Workers testify in 'Dr. Dino' trial, Pensacola News Journal, October 19, 2006 (http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061019/NEWS01/610190338/1006)

[brodski]

I'm still waiting for the book of the Dover Panda Trial.

And the film.

How did that turn out, did the panda get off?

[Mojo]

Pandas hardly ever get off.

[Anacoluthon64]

Pandas hardly ever get off.Yeah, those dodgy thumbs are a bane.

'Luthon64

[brodski]

Pandas hardly ever get off.

Which is why I thought it may have been newsworthy.

[Mojo]

Next installment: Christian College leader says taxes are part of religion (http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061020/NEWS01/610200327/1006).

[Soapy Sam]

I bet he turns out to have been a victim.

A tax collecter fondled his thigh when he was a kid. His alcoholic mother beat him up. His pastor told him lying was OK if you only believe.

It wasn't his fault he ended up a shambling idiot with his hand stuck in a cookie jar. (Allegedly , as the BBC likes to say about ongoing trials).

[Questioninggeller]

...
A Florida attorney testified Friday that Pensacola evangelist Kent Hovind disputed the government's right to tax him and likened his ministry's powers to that of a foreign embassy.

"He tried to stress to me that he was like the pope and this was like the Vatican," Seminole attorney David Charles Gibbs testified at Hovind's trial before U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers.
...
Gibbs said Hovind tried to persuade him he had no obligation to pay employee income taxes and explained with "a great deal of bravado" how he had "beat the tax system."
...
Testimony of Special IRS Agent Scott Schneider took up the remainder of the day and is expected to resume Monday.

Schneider said his investigation revealed that Hovind "hadn't filed tax returns ever, to my knowledge."
...
Evidence presented included employee applications, vacation schedules and memos chiding staff for showing up late to work.

In one memo, Jo Hovind informed her daughter, who works at the park, that her pay would be docked $10 for talking too long on the telephone when she should have been working.

From: "Lawyer: Hovind detailed actions," PensacolaNewsJournal.com, October 21, 2006 (http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061021/NEWS01/610210318)

[Questioninggeller]

This subject is continued here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=67601).