Jury Finds Glendale Man Guilty of Federal Tax Evasion

A Glendale man was convicted Friday in U.S. District Court of evading federal income taxes, despite his repeated arguments that the taxes did not apply to him.

It took the jury less than an hour to find Francis A. Marafino Jr. guilty on all six counts against him--three misdemeanor counts of failing to file tax returns and three felony counts of evading payment of his federal income taxes.

For his failure to pay $23,384, his federal income tax burden from 1991-93, Marafino faces a maximum of 18 years in prison and a fine of more than $1 million, said the prosecutor, Deputy U.S. Atty. Paul Stern.

“He’s a person in search of a theory to go along with his not paying taxes,” Stern said of Marafino’s arguments, which included a claim that the Internal Revenue Service is an arm of the International Monetary Fund.

Marafino, 33, claimed that he was not a U.S. citizen after 1991, Stern said. But he traveled on a U.S. passport in 1994 and 1995, Stern added.

“Mr. Marafino believes he is a free man, but he is a free-loader,” Stern said.

Marafino argued that his beliefs were the issue during the four-day trial, not his failure to pay federal income taxes. But jurors unanimously rejected his claim.

“The evidence was pretty clear and I think we all felt it is OK to have your beliefs,” said Christina McIntyre, a juror from Agoura. “But if you’re going to be a U.S. citizen, you have to obey the law.”