LAS VEGAS -- A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the tax evasion convictions of Medical Mafia insider Howard Awand and wife Linda, who failed to pay roughly $2.5 million in back taxes.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected the couple's argument that their due process rights were violated because the law used to convict them is subject to arbitrary enforcement.
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The court wrote that "the statute is not vague because it ‘gives adequate notice to people of ordinary intelligence of what conduct is prohibited,'" quoting a passage from a 2006 case.
Howard Awand, a former medical consultant, was sentenced in April 2010 to four years in prison while his wife received a three-year sentence. They were also each ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.
In a separate case, Howard Awand received a four-month prison sentence in June 2010 and was ordered to pay $700,000 in restitution for failing to alert authorities of fraud committed by Las Vegas attorney Noel Gage and Dr. Mark Kabins, a Las Vegas spine surgeon.
The Internal Revenue Service had accused the Awands of living a luxurious life, including the purchase of exotic homes and cars, while avoiding their taxes. The taxes they owed were for the years 2001 through 2004, when they made $8.1 million in taxable income but paid only $30,000 to the IRS.
Howard Awand
