Former area attorney and kids-for-cash figure Robert Powell was sentenced Thursday to four years in federal prison for evading millions in taxes and using his ill-gotten gains to live a lavish lifestyle in a Florida mansion \u2014 driving luxury vehicles and sending his children to prestigious private schools.<\/p>\n
Powell, 66, of Palm Beach, Florida, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to evading taxes connected to over $18 million in legal fees he earned over a 12-year period at his former Luzerne County-based firm, The Powell Law Group.<\/p>\n
While the exact amount of tax loss remained disputed, the parties agreed for sentencing purposes that Powell failed to pay somewhere between $1.5 million and $3.5 million in taxes.<\/p>\n
During Powell\u2019s sentencing hearing Thursday afternoon,\u00a0U.S. District Judge Malachy E. Mannion characterized the now-disbarred attorney as a \u201crecidivist\u201d and a \u201cfraudster\u201d who was motivated by his own greed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wanted to make sure you kept more and paid less,\u201d Mannion said. \u201cInstead of a Maserati, try a Mazda next time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge went on to chide the Powell for \u201cliv(ing) in the lap of luxury\u201d and evading taxes after having previously served time in federal prison in the kids-for-cash case.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost flabbergasting to me, but it is indicative of a disease called greed,\u201d Mannion said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office had asserted that Powell owed the government more than $7 million he failed to pay during a tax evasion scheme of \u201cstaggering\u201d scope.<\/p>\n
In a sentencing memorandum filed ahead of Thursday\u2019s hearing, prosecutors noted that Powell used the money to purchase a variety of luxury items, including a $2.6 million mansion in a Palm Beach Gardens gated community, a $1.25 million sportfishing yacht, and multiple high-end vehicles \u2014 a Maserati, a Land Rover and a Mercedes-Benz.<\/p>\n
Powell used the money to put his children into \u201cvarious prestigious private high schools and universities\u201d and lodged one of them in a \u201chigh-end, off-campus residence\u201d that cost Powell $115,200 in rent, wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Ravi R. Sharma and Alexandra K. Fleszar, a trial attorney with the Justice Department\u2019s tax section.<\/p>\n
In addition, Powell ensured that his family received monthly payments of $30,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Powell Law Group and its employees struggled to keep the lights on, Powell lived large,\u201d the prosecutors wrote.<\/p>\n
They\u00a0argued that the \u201ccomplexity and intricacy of the defendant\u2019s scheme cannot be overstated\u201d and urged the court to impose a sentence of five years in prison \u2014 the maximum \u2014 followed by three years of probation.<\/p>\n
The prosecution also sought to have Powell pay $5.6 million in restitution \u2014 $3.5 million in unpaid taxes plus $2.1 million in interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendant evaded taxation on more than $18 million worth of income for over a decade and then doubled down on his misconduct by lying to the IRS, all after having served a term of imprisonment for prior felony offenses, including a tax crime,\u201d the prosecutors wrote. \u201cThis is egregious conduct that warrants a significant term of incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Powell\u2019s attorney, Stephen S. Stallings, has argued that the government\u2019s estimate of $7 million in unpaid taxes\u00a0was off the mark by more than $4 million due to accounting \u201cmistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
In court Thursday, Stallings sought a lesser term than the maximum five-year sentence Powell faced. While prosecutors argued Powell\u2019s actions amounted to a sophisticated scheme, Stallings contended a mere failure to file taxes is \u201cthe opposite of sophisticated.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also maintained that Powell has continued to file his tax returns \u2014 as required by his plea agreement \u2014 because of the financial cost as well as a potential \u201cincrimination situation\u201d that could have arisen.<\/p>\n
Fleszar countered that Powell did in fact take sophisticated steps to evade paying his taxes, including lying to auditors and shuffling money between various accounts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a matter of simply not filing tax returns,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence due to his history and the \u201csweeping scheme\u201d he set into motion.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis conduct makes clear that to Mr. Powell it did not matter who pays the consequences,\u201d Fleszar said. \u201cThe defendant cared only about lining his own pockets at the expense of others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Powell chose not to address the court about his conduct, offering only a brief expression of appreciation to his attorney.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Stallings has done everything that I think is appropriate from a legal standpoint,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n
In imposing the sentence of four years in prison followed by three years of probation, Mannion took exception to the defense suggestion that Powell\u2019s crime was based in an oversight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no mistake here,\u201d Mannion said. \u201cRobert Powell, unfortunately you\u2019re a fraudster. You\u2019re a recidivist.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to the prison time, the judge ordered Powell to pay $3.5 million in restitution, but he waived the interest payments requested by the prosecution.<\/p>\n
Powell will also be required to pay a $100,000 fine as part of his sentence.<\/p>\n
Mannion ordered him to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence Feb. 27.<\/p>\n
Powell previously served a year and a half in prison for failing to report a felony and being an accessory to a conspiracy in connection with Luzerne County\u2019s infamous \u201ckids-for-cash\u201d case.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Powell paid $770,000 to two corrupt county judges, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan, who in turn funneled juvenile defendants to two private, for-profit detention centers Powell partly owned.<\/p>\n
After being sentenced to 17\u00bd years in prison on racketeering conspiracy charges, Conahan, 73, saw his sentence commuted in December 2024.<\/p>\n
Ciavarella, 75, continues to serve a 28-year prison sentence at Federal Correctional Institution-Butner in North Carolina on honest services mail-fraud charges.<\/p>\n
He is scheduled to be released on June 18, 2034.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former area attorney and kids-for-cash figure Robert Powell was sentenced Thursday to four years in federal prison for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[46,182,803,139,28,178,180,179,802],"class_list":["post-107320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-courts","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-cvc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}