Dr. Michael D. Brandner, Wire Fraud and Tax Evasion, Alaska 2015

Anchorage, Alaska – In a shocking case of deceit and greed, Dr. Michael D. Brandner, a 67-year-old Anchorage plastic surgeon, has been sentenced to 48 months in prison for wire fraud and tax evasion.

According to the indictment and evidence introduced at trial, Dr. Brandner concealed over $5 million of assets in secret bank accounts in Panama and Costa Rica from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and his wife. The charges arose from a scheme to conceal assets from his ex-wife during their divorce proceedings.

Dr. Brandner, a resident of Anchorage, Alaska, was convicted by a federal jury in November 2015 of four counts of wire fraud and three counts of tax evasion. The scheme began in 2007, when Dr. Brandner collected millions of dollars in marital assets and secretly drove from Tacoma, Washington, to Costa Rica in Central America.

In Costa Rica, he opened two bank accounts into which he deposited over $350,000 in cash and hid a thousand ounces of gold in a safe deposit box. He then traveled to Panama where he opened an account under the name of a sham corporation and deposited $4.6 million into the account in 2008.

Dr. Brandner concealed both the existence of the bank accounts and the interest income he earned on those accounts from the court in the divorce proceedings and from the IRS. He owed the IRS $500,000 in additional taxes for the 2008 through the 2010 tax years.

“Tax evasion and financial crimes undermine the system of laws that govern this country and demean the vast majority of citizens that pay their taxes and deal honestly and openly with the rules governing a whole array of judicial procedures,” said U.S. Attorney Karen L. Loeffler.

In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason ordered Dr. Brandner to serve two years of supervised release and pay $25,922.95 toward the costs of prosecution. The judge will also consider the government’s request for restitution for Dr. Brandner’s ex-wife.

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