Tax evader gets prison time

ANCHORAGE -- A Wasilla chiropractor who didn't file three years' federal income tax was sentenced Monday to three years, five months in prison.

U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline also fined Shane A. Massey $7,500 and required him to file tax returns for 1968, when he earned $85,000; 1997, when he earned $150,000; and 1998, when he earned $130,000.

Massey, 61, was convicted in July of tax evasion and attempting to obstruct the Internal Revenue Service investigation of his tax liability.

During sentencing, Beistline said Massey "intentionally violated U.S. laws to avoid paying his fair share of taxes."

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, District of Alaska, Massey undertook a six-year attempt to impede and obstruct the IRS, sending letters accusing IRS agents of fraud. He urged banks to refuse to comply with IRS summonses, and claimed he had copyrighted his name and was owed $500,000 by anyone who used his name without permission -- including IRS agents and federal prosecutors.

IRS special agent Dan Wardlaw said Massey's conviction is a matter of fairness for U.S. taxpayers who obey the law.

"Filing federal income tax returns and paying federal income taxes has been a law for decades," he said. "Furthermore, there is no free lunch. It takes money to run a country. When you consider all of the government services that we Americans expect and take for granted, such as national defense, filing federal income tax returns and paying federal income taxes makes sense.

"IRS special agents, including those in Alaska, are highly talented and dedicated people who are extremely good at what they do. Those citizens who would commit tax crimes, money laundering crimes, other white-collar crimes and even narcotics related crimes do so at their own risk. The next knock on the doors of these people could easily be the men and women of IRS Criminal Investigation."

Massey acted as his own attorney during trial and at sentencing. He has been jailed since July, and said during the sentencing he had been "unjustly imprisoned." Massey described himself as the victim of a "judicial lynching."

The maximum sentence Beistline could have imposed was six years in prison and a fine of up to $550,000.

The case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation agents and prosecuted jointly by the Anchorage U.S. Attorney's office and the U.S. Department of Justice tax division.