An Orange County man rediscovered the idiom that nothing is certain in this world, except for death and taxes.
Because Cody Jannetti owed the federal government $107,000 in delinquent taxes, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) placed an Oct. 2016 levy on his income from Loan Depot in Foothill Ranch.
Three months later, Jannetti faxed a forged IRS document to trick his employer into believing the levy had been removed and he could resume receiving his full pay.
Federal prosecutors in Santa Ana this month formally accused him of illegally using a U.S. Department of Treasury symbol.
The 36-year-old Jannetti signed a guilty plea and now faces a maximum punishment of up to one year in prison plus a $10,000 fine.
Inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter will determine if any incarceration is necessary.
The IRS is a division of the Treasury Department.
UPDATE: On Feb. 25, 2019, Carter sentenced Jannetti, who apologized for his crime, to one year of probation.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.