Prison for dentist who hid Columbia Twp. house from IRS

A Strongsville dentist who tried to hide his ownership of a house in Columbia Township to avoid paying taxes has been sentenced to four years in federal prison. Douglas Smith, 68, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster on Feb. 7, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio. A three-day trial in October ended with a jury finding him guilty of four counts of tax evasion for the years 2004 to 2012 and 2014 to 2017. Smith got 41 months in prison for attempted tax evasion plus seven months in prison for criminal contempt of court, and was ordered to pay $727,000 restitution and a $19,000 fine for criminal contempt, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. At sentencing, Polster called Smith "a freeloader," according to Cleveland.com. Smith, the website reported, is a so-called "sovereign citizen." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, sovereign citizens "believe they are not under the jurisdiction of the federal government and consider themselves exempt from U.S. law. They use a variety of conspiracy theories and falsehoods to justify their beliefs and their activities, some of which are illegal and violent." Many refuse to pay taxes or apply for license plates, and they often engage in "paper terrorism" — filing meaningless documents to clog up the courts, according to the SPLC. "Regardless of your views on taxes, you've been a freeloader for 20, maybe 30 years," the website quoted Polster telling Smith. A licensed dentist, Smith tried to evade federal taxes from 2004 to 2012 and from 2014 to 2017, according to federal prosecutors. At one point Smith claimed his wages were only about $858 per month — a total of $10,300 per year. To avoid taxes, Smith put his Columbia Township home into a trust, bought gold bars and coins that he stashed in the home, filed for bankruptcy, and deposited his paychecks into a trust to try and hide them from the IRS. Evidence presented at his trial was that Smith hadn't filed income tax returns since 1992 and owed more than $490,000 in back taxes and penalties. He also tried to avoid paying his mortgage, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. The IRS went after Smith multiple times, filing tax liens against him and his trust with the Lorain County Recorder's Office in 2010 and sending him letters threatening to seize his property and assets to settle the back taxes. Federal agents seized $250,000 in cash, gold bars and silver coins from Smith's Columbia Township home in 2012 to settle his back taxes. After that, Smith tried to transfer his assets, including the house, into a second trust to avoid tax collection and foreclosure, federal prosecutors said. Smith later filed for bankruptcy, but tried to hide the $155,000 Columbia Township property from U.S. Bankruptcy Court, as well as $19,000 in cash hidden in a closet there, silver coins worth up to $10,000 and a number of guns, federal prosecutors said. He was charged with bankruptcy fraud but those charges were dismissed before his trial began last year, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Smith improperly tried to serve the prosecutor on his case with "unrelated" and "improper" documents, which led Judge Polster to find him in contempt. Smith also alleged Polster committed misconduct in the case in January 2022 and tried to have him removed, but U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver dismissed that complaint. Oliver also dismissed a $1 million lawsuit Smith filed against two federal court clerks, alleging judicial misconduct, according to court records.