United States v. Dupont

169 F. Supp. 572, 3 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 813, 1959 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3855
CourtDistrict Court, D. Massachusetts
DecidedJanuary 19, 1959
DocketCr. No. 58-153
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 169 F. Supp. 572 (United States v. Dupont) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Dupont, 169 F. Supp. 572, 3 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 813, 1959 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3855 (D. Mass. 1959).

Opinion

FRANCIS J. W. FORD, District Judge.

Defendant has been charged in an indictment in 62 counts with aiding and assisting in the presentation of false and fraudulent income tax returns by several persons for the calendar years 1953,1954 and 1955. Defendant, among other activities, carried on a business of assisting others in the preparation of income tax returns. Defendant moves to suppress as evidence all information and records obtained directly from or as a result of examination by agents of the Internal Revenue Service of defendant’s copies of tax returns of his clients.

There was some conflict of testimony as to what took place between defendant and the agents, but the court finds the following as the relevant facts: On August 28, 1956, George Pace, an Internal Revenue Agent assigned to the New Bedford office, and Joseph R. O’Malley, a Special Agent with the Intelligence Division, Internal Revenue Service, first went to defendant’s home and had some conversation with defendant’s wife in defendant’s absence. At that time they saw no records. They returned the next day when defendant was at home. They introduced themselves and showed him their identification cards, which he did not look at because, as he testified, he already knew Pace as a revenue agent. O’Malley then told defendant that he was from the Intelligence Division and that he had been assigned to investigate defendant’s tax returns for 1953, 1954 and 1955 and explained that the participation of the Intelligence Division contemplated an investigation rather than a routine examination. Defendant told him he was familiar with filing tax returns and that he knew what the Intelligence Division represented. O’Malley then made no further explanation of the significance of his presence.

The agents then discussed with defendant his own personal income tax returns and the nature of the records he kept. He told them the only record of his business of preparing tax returns was found in the copies which he retained of the returns he prepared for his clients. He had made a notation on each of these of the amount of the fee charged. These copies of the returns for 1954 and 1955 were filed together in a filing cabinet in the office, the 1954 return being sleeved into the 1955 return of the same taxpayer. The 1953 returns were in another room, but defendant brought them into-[574]*574the office. He told the agents he had no objection to their examining any of his records in the office. After asking defendant some questions as to his personal history, they proceeded to go through these retained copies, taking down the names of the clients and the amounts charged them. They spent three days on this, then suspended work until about September 24, when they returned for another day. O’Malley again saw defendant on October 11. They discussed an apparent understatement the agents thought they had found in defendant’s own tax return, which defendant said he could explain. O’Malley then told defendant that the investigation was to be extended and that an investigation had been ordered to determine whether or not there had been an attempt by defendant to prepare false and fraudulent returns for others.

Defendant contends that this was from the start the real purpose of the investigation. However, on the evidence the only instructions it can be found that O’Malley received in August were to investigate possible evasion by defendant of his own income tax. It is true that at that time the Internal Revenue Service was in possession of information involving the names of certain of Dupont’s clients whose allegedly false returns are now made the basis of some of the counts of the indictment. This, however, appears to have been information received from banks as to certain checks and not information indicating that these clients had filed false returns. From all that now appears, when the agents began this investigation they suspected it might show violation of the internal revenue laws by defendant, they thought it most likely that any such violation would prove to be evasion by defendant of his own income tax. They had no specific suspicion that defendant might be concerned in any false returns filed by his •clients and were not, at the time they examined these records, specifically looking for evidence to support the charges in the pending indictment.

Defendant argues that the fact that the agents listed the names of clients from the 1955 return is significant. Of course, these returns of the clients for 1955 were made out by defendant for them in 1956 and the fees received with respect to them were income to him in 1956. Hence these returns were not relevant to an investigation of defendant’s own tax returns for 1953,1954 and 1955. However, there is no good reason to doubt O’Malley’s statement that this listing from the 1955 returns was made by mistake. Defendant himself, when asked for records pertinent to his returns for 1953, 1954 and 1955, handed over to the agents his copies of the clients’ returns for these tax years. The agents made no effort to conceal the fact that they were working on the clients’ 1955 returns. In fact they specifically called defendant’s attention to one of them when they found no notation on it of the charge made to the client. Further it was not until some time after that incident that it occurred to defendant himself that a mistake was being made.

The real issue here is whether defendant voluntarily turned over these copies of his clients’ returns to the agents for examination or whether he was induced to do so by fraud or misrepresentation on their part. Of course, a defendant has no right to the suppression of evidence which he has freely and voluntarily turned over to the investigators. The fact that the taxpayer was not formally warned of his constitutional rights before turning over his papers to the agents does not in itself make the production of these papers involuntary. United States v. Frank, 3 Cir., 245 F.2d 284, 286; Turner v. United States, 4 Cir., 222 F.2d 926, 931; United States v. Burdick, 3 Cir., 214 F.2d 768; Hanson v. United States, 9 Cir., 186 F.2d 61.

Defendant contends that his apparently voluntary consent in this case was vitiated because of fraud or misrepresentation by the Internal Revenue agents and that therefore the resulting examination was an unreasonable search of his papers. [575]*575The courts are not in agreement as to the extent to which a defendant in a criminal tax case is entitled to the suppression of evidence obtained by fraud, misrepresentation or concealment on the part of the investigators. In the most recent case in this circuit, Chieftain Pontiac Corp. v. Julian, 209 F.2d 657, 659, the indication by way of dictum is that the majority of the court felt that the use of false representations to obtain disclosure from the defendant does not constitute an unreasonable search and seizure. Cf. Smith v. United States, 1 Cir., 210 F.2d 496, 499.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Commonwealth v. Aguiar
350 N.E.2d 436 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1976)
United States v. Neves
269 F. Supp. 158 (S.D. New York, 1967)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
169 F. Supp. 572, 3 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 813, 1959 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3855, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-dupont-mad-1959.