Aiken man sentenced in tax evasion scheme

Date: Aug. 19, 2024

Contact: [email protected]

Columbia, SC - Dennis Wayne Brite of Aiken, was sentenced to probation pleading guilty to tax evasion. He also immediately paid more than $669,000 in back taxes and interest.

Evidence presented to the court showed that for nearly a decade, Brite used a complex scheme involving foreign shell companies and overseas banks to hide over $2 million of income from the Internal Revenue Service. IRS criminal investigators learned of the scheme when one of the overseas banks involved in the scheme, Euro Pacific Bank, became a target of a federal investigation.

United States District Judge Sherri A. Lydon sentenced Brite to probation after his payment of $669,249.86 for his back taxes and interest. Evidence introduced in court indicated that defendants do not typically repay the entire tax loss amount including the interest and that Brite had made extraordinary efforts to come into compliance with his taxes.

This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS CI). Assistant U.S. Attorney T. DeWayne Pearson is prosecuting 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.