SF software engineer lied about $1M worth of medical bills to evade taxes, DA says

( KRON ) — A San Francisco software engineer manager was returned a guilty verdict by a federal jury on Thursday on three counts of tax evasion after allegedly lying about his medical bills, U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey’s office announced.

According to court documents, Dwayne Lorenzo Richardson, 53, of San Francisco, “evaded” his personal income taxes for three years from 2017 to 2019. Richardson claimed “to owe only about $24,496 in total tax when he made over $1.2 million as a software engineer manager,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors allege Richardson filed his false claim by declaring “over $1.1 million in medical expenses, overstating those expenses by more than $945,000.” Richardson received over $165,000 in tax refunds for the three charged tax years, according to evidence presented at trial.

Richardson then lied to an IRS revenue agent in two audit interviews, stating that the $1.1 million of medical expenses “were related to an appendectomy. But according to the court record, Richardson paid no more than a few hundred dollars for treatment… which took place in 2010, not 2017, 2018, or 2019,” prosecutors said.

According to court documents, Richardson explained to one of his representatives that he deducted nonexistent medical bills for years because “he had not been ‘caught’ the first time he did it.”

The guilty verdict of Richardson followed a three-day jury trial in June. Richardson’s sentencing hearing is set for Jan. 14, 2025.  He faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison and a $100,000 fine on each of the three counts, prosecutors said.

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