US: Man who filed fake IRS forms sentenced

By JOHN DIEDRICH
jdiedrich@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Oct. 28, 2007

Gary Pansier, a 70-year-old former airline pilot from Crivitz, hasn't paid taxes since the 1980s, and when the tax man came collecting, he had a way to retaliate.

Pansier filed a flurry of phony Internal Revenue Service forms against county, state and federal officials, according to federal court documents. He even filed forms against the IRS agent investigating him, a federal prosecutor and a federal judge.

On Friday, Pansier, who was convicted by a jury of filing fraudulent IRS forms in June after a nine-day trial, received 24 months in prison from U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert.

Pansier is the latest case of what the IRS says is a troubling pattern: people who lash out at government officials and others, with IRS forms, creating a difficult mess to clean up. He is the fourth person in the eastern district of Wisconsin to be convicted in the last few years of using IRS forms against government officials, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gail Hoffman.

"He forced them to have private consequences for their public life," she said.

Pansier told Clevert he misunderstood what he was doing.

"These were mistakes, and I truly apologize," he said.

Pansier was charged with filing eight phony Form 8300s against people such as a state revenue agent, a Brown County judge, the Marinette County treasurer and others. In total, Hoffman said, he filed 41 of the 8300s, which are IRS forms required when someone receives a cash payment of $10,000 or more. The form is intended to catch suspicious transactions and often snares drug dealers. Hoffman, against whom Pansier filed a different IRS form after he was charged in November 2005, said they are a headache to clear up and can lead to audits. Pansier was not charged for filing the forms against Hoffman, the IRS agent and the federal judge, but he was locked up after filling out the forms on two separate occasions and has been behind bars for 11 months.

Pansier also sent other forms - called "sight drafts" - to government offices where he owed taxes. They looked like a money order but were bogus, Hoffman said.

Pansier's attorney, Nishay Sanan, said Pansier never benefited from the "sight drafts" because banks spotted them as bogus. Pansier viewed them like IOUs, Sanan said. Pansier was no mastermind committing an elaborate fraud, he said.

"This scheme was going nowhere," Sanan said.

Clevert, who noted Pansier hadn't acknowledged he had done anything wrong until sentencing Friday, said he would have given Pansier a tougher sentence if he were younger and didn't have health issues. Ordinarily, Clevert said, he doesn't think defendants 50 or older will commit more crimes, but he suspected Pansier might do it again.

"The court has to impose a sentence that gets the attention not only of the defendant but others who might follow a similar course of conduct," he said.

The 11 months Pansier has served will be subtracted from his sentence.

Pansier told Clevert he would appeal.

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