Lawyer Is Indicted on Tax Evasion Charges

A Rancho Cucamonga lawyer was arrested Friday on charges of income tax evasion, filing a false loan application, witness tampering, impersonating a federal officer and attempting to carry a loaded handgun onto an airplane.

James S. Davis, 50, was suspended by the California State Bar earlier this year and submitted his resignation last week with charges pending.

According to a federal grand jury indictment, Davis failed to pay taxes on more than $1 million earned from his law practice from 1999 to 2002. He allegedly funneled his income into a client trust account and into the bank account of a nonprofit corporation he established, using both accounts to pay his personal expenses as well as the salaries of his employees.

Davis also was charged with falsifying an application for a line of credit at Bank of America in the name of his nonprofit corporation, which he called the California Fire Marshal Officers Assn.

After Internal Revenue Service criminal investigators searched his home and office in July 2002, Davis allegedly sent letters to potential witnesses, threatening to file a million-dollar lawsuit against them and warning “the next knock on the door you hear will be for you.”

In a separate indictment, Davis was charged with trying to carry a concealed, loaded handgun onto a Southwest Airlines flight at Ontario International Airport in June 2002, and with impersonating an officer from the Department of Homeland Security in April 2003 in order to purchase airline tickets at a government discount rate.

He was being held Friday at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center pending a hearing before a U.S. magistrate judge. Efforts to reach his attorney were unsuccessful.