NEW ORLEANS — *The story is based on information reported by WWL-TV's Erika Ferrando
It was another day of profit and loss and taxes and who knew what and when at the tax fraud trial of Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams and his business partner Nicole Burdett.
Williams went in to the side entrance prior to court starting after an apparent threat on social media.
On the stand most of the day was tax preparer Henry Timothy. The defense grilled him on whether or not Williams or Burdett asked him to improperly prepare their taxes.
Burdett’s attorney Mike Magner: “You have no emails in which Mrs. Burdett asked you to lower her taxes, do you?”
Timothy replied: “No sir.”
Magner: “You have no letters or correspondence where Mrs. Burdett asked you to lower her taxes, same with Mr. Williams?”
Timothy: No sir.”
Both Magner and Williams defense attorney Lisa Wayne repeatedly pointed out issues with Timothy’s background and his own taxes, which he admitted to have cheated on.
The prosecution also harped on Timothy’s credentials, about whether he was a CPA or presented himself as such. And they asked about items they say should have sent up a red flag to a preparer, like Williams asking to amend some post-Katrina returns as he came up with extra expenses for some of those years.
Later, Special Agent Tim Moore with the IRS came to the stand. He was asked by the prosecution if he found expenses on Williams’ returns from 2013 to 2017 that shouldn’t have been there.
“Yes,” Moore said. “A little over $765,000 for the years 2013 to 2017.”
Williams and Burdett are accused of overstating expense by hundreds of thousands of dollars to reduce their tax liabilities by large amounts of money over those five years.
The trial is expected to last up to 3 weeks.