Wayne C. Bentson

Some promoters are more equal than others.

By Maynard Rich

For several years I've been following the adventures of various "tax honesty" players (Vernie Kuglin and Dick Simkanin) and promoters (Larken Rose, Irwin Schiff, Joe Banister, Bob Schulz and Wayne C. Bentson.)

Some of these people have been indicted and acquitted (Kuglin), some indicted and convicted (Schiff and Simkanin.) Some have been raided (Rose, Schiff and Bentson), and some simply indicted but not yet brought to trial (Bentson.)

It was almost two years ago that Wayne Bentson was arrested and indicted on two misdemeanor counts of failure to file and one felony count of conspiracy to impede the administration of internal revenue laws.

For an account of his arrest, arraignment and other information about Mr. Bentson, see http://www.sierratimes.com/02/05/25/arst052502.htm. In late 1995, Mr. Bentson was a witness for the defense at the failure-to-file trial of one of his clients, Thomas Martell, in Phoenix, AZ. Martell was convicted and spent five months in federal prison.

According to Martell, during his trial the U.S. Attorney asked Wayne Bentson point-blank if he filed tax returns; Bentson replied under oath that he did not file returns, that he hadn't filed returns for many years, and that he'd be "stupid to file returns."

Despite this defiant admission in open court, the government did not file any criminal charges against Bentson until some six years later - and those charges were filed from Tucson, not Phoenix, even though Bentson lives in Payson, AZ, within the Phoenix IRS District.

Bentson's bond at the time was set at $75,000.

A message urging folks to send Bentson legal defense money to a man in Texas named Tim Belk was subsequently posted at a web site (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CalTechPreFrosh/message/5767).

Despite Bentson's repeatedly boasting in many of his seminars that he'd "have to lower his IQ 50 points to be an attorney," he hired attorney Joel F. Hansen (http://www.lasvegasfamilylawyers.com) as his criminal defense lawyer.

Since his trial was first set for October of 2001 (in Tucson) Wayne Bentson's trial has been postponed several times.

The latest postponement was from January 27th, 2004, to an as-yet-unspecified date in April, 2004.

Apparently some of Bentson's ex-clients, all of whom who had terrible criminal and civil problems with IRS after they used his services, are now convinced that Bentson's case will never go to court.

Some of these clients claim they paid Bentson variously between $25,000 and almost $200,000 for his services.

In Bentson's criminal indictment, the government claimed that he had over $80,000 in a foreign bank account.

And here's the latest bizarre wrinkle in the Wayne Bentson criminal case:

In the very same month in which Dick Simkanin - who was, at least for a while, an associate of Wayne Bentson's - was convicted of "tax crimes" in Texas - Bentson's bond was reduced in Arizona from $75,000 to $20,000.

The court handed the difference - $55,000 - back to Bentson.