Date: Jan. 10, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov DENVER — The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado announces that Steven Darbee formerly of Brighton, was sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal prison for tax evasion. According to the plea agreement, the defendant last filed a tax return with the IRS in 2014. Beginning in April of 2013, and continuing until January of 2021, the defendant evaded the assessment of federal income tax by submitting to his employers false Form W-4s claiming multiple dependents so that his employers would not withhold federal income tax. While the defendant was only allowed to claim two allowances, during the relevant time period the defendant claimed up to 99 dependents and in 2021 claimed he was "exempt" from paying federal taxes. The defendant had an opportunity to pay all taxes due and owing for each calendar year by the April filing date and did not do so. Nor did he file a tax return for any of the years in question. The IRS's attempts to bring the defendant into compliance were unsuccessful. "Our office will hold tax cheats accountable," said United States Attorney Cole Finegan. "Everyone must pay their taxes, and if you don't, there will be consequences." "Attempting to defraud the IRS by falsifying Form W-4s unfairly shifts the tax burden to honest American taxpayers and criminals must know they will not get away with it," said IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) Special Agent in Charge, Todd Martin. "CI special agents identified more than $5.5 billion in tax fraud last year and we will remain committed to holding tax cheats accountable." United States District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang sentenced Darbee on January 10, 2024. In addition to his term of incarceration, Darbee was ordered to pay $308,370.59 to the IRS in taxes, interest, and penalties. Darbee was also ordered to serve 3 years on supervised release after his custodial sentence. The Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (CI) conducted the investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Martha A. Paluch handled the prosecution of the case. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
