Tax Protester Loses Long Shot to ‘Break America of IRS’
A San Diego tax protester who claimed he had a good-faith belief that he should not have to file tax returns was convicted Monday of 11 felony counts after prosecutors argued that he understood the law but chose to ignore it.
After just two hours of deliberation, a federal jury found Joe Edelson, 62, guilty of five counts of criminal tax evasion for the years 1984 through 1988 and six counts of using false Social Security numbers. Edelson, who is scheduled to be sentenced in January, could receive 55 years in prison.
Edelson, a real estate salesman, had testified that he believed Internal Revenue Service codes were unconstitutional. The Fifth Amendment says no one can be compelled to be a witness against himself, Edelson noted, while IRS forms require people to provide information that could be used to incriminate them.
Deputy U.S. Atty. Gay Hugo-Martinez, who interviewed the jurors after the verdict, said they simply didn’t believe that Edelson, who had been convicted once before for failing to file tax returns, was sincere.
“A good-faith belief is one that’s based on someone honestly misunderstanding the law or how it applies to him. What the jury found was that this defendant, who was previously convicted, just chose to ignore (the law),” she said.
“He had not consulted an attorney, a CPA or any professional tax preparer after he was convicted” the first time in 1978 in New Jersey, she said. “The jury said, ‘How can he believe in good faith if he hasn’t done his homework?’. . . He just heard what he wanted to hear.”
Edelson’s case was one of the first in the nation to test a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows protesters to show a jury that they truly believe they should not have to pay taxes. Before his trial began, Edelson told The Times that he was looking forward to going to court to try to “break America of the IRS.”
On Monday, having failed in that endeavor, Edelson was philosophical.
“I asked for this. I have no regrets. That’s life. You take a risk, you’ve got to pay the price,” he said.
Edelson said he was disappointed by the verdict but did not regret his actions. He plans to appeal.
“I’m not sorry about what I did. . . . The point that I tried to make is we’ve been abandoned by our congressmen and special interests. Obviously I didn’t make my point,” he said, calling the jury’s swift action a “tragedy. . . . I would have felt better if they’d at least disputed it for a couple of days.”
Edelson’s attorney, David Cohen, and Hugo-Martinez agreed that Edelson’s prior conviction, combined with his falsification of his Social Security number on tax records and his use of his son’s bank account to hide his assets, made jurors suspicious.
“I think they felt, ‘If he really was imbued with this (belief), then why did he do these other things?’ ” Cohen said. “But, knowing him, I was convinced that he really is sincere in his view that he was acting lawfully. . . . And there are literally millions of people in the U.S. who agree with him and are doing the same thing.”
Instead of ordering that Edelson be taken into custody after the verdict, Judge Earl B. Gilliam released him pending sentencing. Cohen said the judge’s decision indicated to him that the judge sees Edelson as a spirited protester, but not a scam artist.
Cohen said he plans to argue at the sentencing hearing for probation or an alternative sentence such as residency at a halfway house. He pointed to the fact that Edelson, in his pursuit of a showdown with the IRS, had scaled back his lifestyle, walking away from his own house and business.
“Everybody agrees he would have been a lot more comfortable and made a lot more money even if he had paid taxes,” Cohen said. But, in interviews after the verdict, he said, some jurors said their decision was based on fairness: they said, “We have to pay, and this guy should too.”
Hugo-Martinez said that, although Edelson has not paid taxes since 1974, a six-year statute of limitations prevented her from charging him for more crimes. According to her figures, Edelson owes the government nearly $40,000 for the crimes of which he was convicted, committed over a five-year period.
