A federal court jury deliberated for less than three hours Friday before finding former world kickboxing champion Dennis Alexio guilty of filing false tax returns, collecting fraudulent tax refunds and blocking the government’s attempts to recover the money.
The jury also decided that three cashier’s checks worth $226,527 and a 2010 Nissan Armada sport utility vehicle that authorities seized following Alexio’s arrest in 2013 are proceeds from Alexio’s crimes and are therefore forfeited to the government.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright ordered Alexio to remain in custody pending sentencing in May on 28 counts of tax and wire fraud, theft of public money and money laundering. Seabright had ordered Alexio taken into custody for contempt on Wednesday for disruptive courtroom behavior.
Seabright ordered Alexio to listen to the jury’s forfeiture verdicts from another room after he twice stood up to walk out when he was in the courtroom to hear the jury’s guilty verdicts.
Alexio, 56, served as his own lawyer in the trial. He did not present an opening statement, asked the government’s witnesses few questions, did not present any defense witnesses and made a brief three-sentence closing argument.
He is scheduled to stand trial again in March for allegedly creating and negotiating fake financial documents, some of which he used to purchase more than $200,000 worth of silver coins, gold bars and Iraqi currency, which authorities have not located.
Some of the crimes of which the jury found Alexio guilty Friday include filing false tax returns for his wife, Anitalei, for refunds of $124,088 for 2007 and $726,100 for 2008.
Anitalei Alexio testified that she didn’t know her husband had filed false tax returns on her behalf. She said when she received the 2007 refund, she bought diamond earrings and a Louis Vuitton wallet, wrote a $6,800 check to her mother for rent, a $50,000 check to her husband and purchased a Land Rover SUV for $54,500.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marshall Silverberg said the government is not seeking the forfeiture of her expenditures from the 2007 tax refund because they were not made in connection with illegal activity.
Alexio said she learned that the 2007 tax refund was fraudulent only after she made the expenditures.
She said she received a notice from the IRS and argued with her husband about returning the money. In the end, she said, she agreed with him not to return it. When she received about half of the 2008 refund, which her husband had directed to be deposited into her bank account, Alexio said she agreed with her husband to withdraw the money to prevent the IRS from seizing it.
Alexio pleaded guilty in 2014 to conspiring with her husband to defraud the government. Her sentencing is in April.
She filed for divorce in December 2013. The divorce was finalized in May.
