Mark Beckham, a former certified public accountant and previously the head of Sports and Fitness Management, has been sentenced to three years in prison for obstructing the administration of the internal revenue laws.
Beckham, 62, of St. Charles County, was found guilty in September of one felony count of attempting to interfere with the administration of the internal revenue laws, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
During a six-day trial, before U.S. District Judge Ronnie White, evidence showed that Beckham prepared 2009 and 2010 individual and corporate federal income tax returns for a client that were later audited by the IRS. During the audit, Beckham provided the IRS with his client’s dayplanner calendar to support deductions for non-passive losses on the tax returns Beckham had prepared for the client., according to the release. However, the calendar had been altered to reflect that Beckham’s client worked for a company that had large tax losses, when the client had not worked for that company.
This case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Steven Muchnick and Reginald Harris are handling the case for the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Beckham's license to practice as a CPA was revoked following his federal mail fraud conviction in 2006.
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