DETROIT - The former President of the Madison District Public Schools Board of Education has been charged in an indictment with tax evasion and failure to file tax returns in connection with the President’s failure to report over $500,000 in income from a school district contractor, U.S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison announced today.
Ison was joined in the announcement by Sarah Kull, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, Josh Hauxhurst, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Michigan Division, and John Woolley, Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Education, Office of Inspector General.
Albert Morrison is charged with four counts of federal income tax evasion and four counts of failing to file federal tax returns. According to the indictment, Morrison was the elected President of the Madison District Public Schools Board of Education from 2012 through 2018. While he was President, Owner A was one of the owners of a building maintenance and reconstruction company (Company A) that was routinely awarded maintenance and construction projects in the Madison District Public Schools.
Owner A, who was a long-time friend of Morrison, wrote checks from Company A to Morrison’s solely owned company, Comfort Consulting, from 2014 through 2018. Morrison deposited the checks from his friend into his solely owned bank account. From May 2014 through December 2018, Owner A, through Company A, made at least $561,667 in payments to Morrison.
Morrison did not declare to the IRS Owner A’s payments to Comfort Consulting as income in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, or 2018. In a further effort to conceal the payments from Owner A, Morrison did not file a federal income tax return in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Morrison used the payments from Owner A and Company A for personal expenditures. By not declaring to the IRS the payments from Owner A as income, Morrison avoided paying approximately $118,200 in taxes.
An indictment is merely an accusation and is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. If convicted, Morrison faces a statutory maximum penalty of 5 years in prison for each count of tax evasion and 1 year in prison for each count of failure to file tax returns. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The investigation of this case was conducted by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Education. It is prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sarah Resnick Cohen and Karen Reynolds.
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