The government says gun dealer Arthur Lee Ong collected his grandmother’s retirement checks 19 years after she died and lied about his assets and income in his 2001 divorce, information prosecutors plan to use in his upcoming tax evasion trial.
The trial is scheduled for next month.
The government says the Magnum Firearms owner had power of attorney over the money in his grandmother’s savings account and should have closed the account when she died to halt direct deposits of her civil service retirement checks.
Ong kept the account open and in 2003 and 2004 transferred money from that account into his own bank accounts, the prosecutor said in court records.
Ong said lawyers handled his grandmother’s estate and that they or the bank should have closed the account. He said that when he became aware of the error he fully cooperated and paid back the government all the money it was owed. The government did not prosecute Ong for any crimes.
“I was honest in taking care of the matter,” Ong said.
The government also says Ong failed to list numerous bank accounts and properties as assets when he filed for divorce in 2000. He was granted an uncontested divorce in 2001.
Ong said he didn’t list the accounts and properties because they weren’t his. He said that when his grandmother died, he inherited several properties which he placed in an irrevocable trust to benefit the Hawaii Baptist Foundation, Hawaii Baptist Academy and Olivet Baptist Church.
An indictment a federal grand jury returned in 2009 says Ong and two unnamed co-conspirators came up with a scheme to hide his income and avoid paying federal income taxes since 1994.
The scheme involved Ong transferring income from Magnum and three rental properties he owns to a trust and another entity he created to hide his income from those sources. He then withdrew money from the trust, the other entity and Magnum for his own benefit, the indictment says.
Ong is also facing charges that he failed to file individual income tax returns beginning with the calendar year 1994 and filing false corporate and trust tax returns.
