Steven Ingersoll of Traverse City, Michigan, is going to prison for cooking the books while running two Michigan charter schools. The former owner and operator of Smart Schools Management and Smart Schools, Inc. was sentenced yesterday in Bay City to 41 months behind bars on federal tax fraud charges, marking the end of a years-long scheme to hide personal income from the IRS.
Ingersoll was convicted on March 10, 2015, on three counts: one count of tax evasion for 2009, one count of tax evasion for 2010, and one count of conspiracy to defraud the IRS in 2011—alongside co-defendant Roy Bradley, Sr. The payments he failed to report came directly from the educational management companies he controlled, which operated charter schools in both Traverse City and Bay City. Instead of reporting this income, Ingersoll treated the funds as untouchable, vanishing them from tax filings while living off the proceeds.
U.S. Attorney Barbara L. McQuade didn’t mince words: “Business owners and others who cheat on their income taxes are free-riding on the backs of the rest of us who pay our taxes. We hope that a prison sentence will deter this kind of conduct.” The message was clear—running a school doesn’t give you a license to loot the system.
The case was a joint blow from federal investigators. Manny Muriel, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, worked alongside John K. Gauthier, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the EPA’s Chicago Area Office Criminal Investigation Division. While the IRS tracked the hidden cash, the EPA’s involvement stemmed from a parallel case involving asbestos violations at one of the schools.
Roy Bradley, Sr. of Bay City, already convicted in December 2014 for violating the federal Clean Air Act by directing workers to improperly remove asbestos during a school renovation, was sentenced in March 2015 to 60 months in prison on those charges. He still awaits sentencing on the tax-related conspiracy conviction, adding another layer to the web of corruption tied to the charter school operation.
The investigation into Ingersoll’s financial shell game serves as a stark reminder: even in the name of education, greed leaves a paper trail. The IRS-CI and EPA-CID are closing that gap—one indictment at a time.
Related Federal Cases
- Durand Micheau Gets 9.5 Years for IRS Tax Fraud Scheme · Michigan
- Zachary Stephen Thomas Gets 2 Years for Mail Theft, Check Fraud · Michigan
- Diallo Dotson Pleads Guilty in $22M IRS Tax Fraud Conspiracy · Michigan
- Oilman Kevin Wieck Gets 6 Years for Fraud, Money Laundering · Illinois
- Shimon Shaked Accused of $800,000 Tax Fraud in Duluth Store Scam · Minnesota
Key Facts
- State: Michigan
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
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