In United States v. Thorson, 633 F.3d 312 (4th Cir. 2011), the Court (at least the majority) rejected the defendant's attempt to avoid the sentencing enhancements imposed by the sentencing court. I thought one of defendant's argument was worth commentary here.
The defendant, a lawyer, assisted in a bogus tax shelter. Key elements of the bogus shelter involved (i) the backdating of documents to make cemetery lots contributed to charity appear as if they had been purchased and held for longer than a year and (ii) the inflation of the values of the donated cemetery lots. Defendant routed his share of the ill-gotten gains through a corporation and created various documents, some backdated, related thereto. In 1998, in response to the IRS "formal request" (presumably an IDR), the defendant produced documents, one of which he prepared after receiving the IDR. Thereafter, a grand jury investigation started and, in response to a grand jury subpoena, the defendant produced that false document and another false document that had been prepared before either the IRS or the grand jury investigation started. Stated otherwise, none of the documents produced in response to the grand jury subpoena were falsified after the date of the grand jury subpoena.
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