Date: March 10, 2025
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
LOS ANGELES — An Orange County man is scheduled to be arraigned today on a federal grand jury indictment alleging he committed tax evasion by deducting millions of dollars in gambling losses and other personal expenditures as business expenses.
Edward Michael Greer, of Newport Beach, is charged with four counts of tax evasion.
Greer is scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles.
According to the indictment, Greer owned an insurance salvage company, the La Mirada-based Greer & Kirby Co. Inc. From 2017 to 2020, Greer allegedly used the company’s bank accounts to pay for personal expenses, including payments to bookmakers Wayne Joseph Nix and Ken Arsenian to cover sports gambling losses, and to purchase a 2021 Mercedes-Benz automobile.
The indictment further alleges that Greer concealed these personal payments in the company’s business records, and in many cases directed to payments to be recorded as business expenses to reduce the company’s income.
Nix and Arsenian previously pleaded guilty for their roles in operating an illegal sports gambling business and are expected to be sentenced in the coming months.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
If convicted, Greer faces a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for each count.
IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is investigating this matter.
Assistant United States Attorney Jeff Mitchell of the Major Frauds Section and Trial Attorneys Julia Rugg and Mahana Weidler of the Justice Department’s Tax Division are prosecuting this case.
IRS-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. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.