Defendant Will Likely Be Deported After He Completes Prison Sentence

By JOSEPH G. LARIOSA

(© 2012 Journal Group Link International)

C HICAGO (jGLi)—When economy took a nose dive, Rimando “Ray” Dumdum tried to make a fast buck to support a family of four in Chicago, Illinois, and his two children and an extended family, including a brother, Rex, who is taking care of their father, in the Philippines.

Ray, 44, could not let his father commit suicide as did his mother due to mounting medical bills for her cancer treatment in the Philippines.

Mr. Dumdum, a scholar from the University of La Salle in the Philippines where he completed an accounting degree in 1989, put up his own tax-returns preparation company in Chicago called “Richman Tax Solutions, Inc.” after learning tax-preparation method from his part-time job at H & R Block tax-preparer company.

In desperation, according to court documents filed by Acting U.S. Attorney Gary S. Shapiro and his Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen P. Baker in the U.S. District Court in Northern Illinois, from 2006 to 2009, Mr. Dumdum unlawfully inflated “his client’s tax returns” to retain their businesses and inflated "the number of his clients by referral.”

Although his income over the same period was increasing every year, he failed to file corporate tax returns for Richman Tax Solutions and concealed his own personal income by siphoning corporate funds thru the use of corporate ATM card and accounts owned by his wife and other businesses, depriving the U.S. government of losses of over $230,000.

Mr. Dumdum could have processed thousands of accounts in which he evaded $3.5-million in taxes that his company falsified 99 percent of the tax returns it filed but

The defendant merely admitted to have falsified 12 client claims and got a low-end of the 24 to 30 months sentence recommended by the prosecution.

Mr. Dumdum concealed profits he gained by failing to file taxes, both for his business and himself and by pilfering those profits thru other accounts and withdrawals.

Steven Hunter, Dumdum’s lawyer, asked the judge to impose 12 months and one day of imprisonment, citing Dumdum’s lack of criminal history after arriving in the U.S. in 1999 “to seek a better life for himself and his family.”

“EMBODIMENT OF AMERICAN DREAM”

J udge John W. Darrah of the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois in Chicago sentenced Mr. Dumdum last Friday (Nov. 2) to two years’ imprisonment telling him, “You are an embodiment of the American Dream.”  Dumdum would likely be deported once he completed his sentence and pays the $231,000 restitution to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

Mr. Dumdum told the judge, “I am truly sorry for the things I have done.”

After graduation, Mr. Dumdum started a series of small businesses under the name of Akire Enterprises, a play of his daughter’s name, Erika. It distributed ice to restaurants and sold hamburgers to the public and made loans to make a living.

In 1999, he traveled to the U.S. and met a Filipino businessman, who offered him an accounting job in a home care business. He later worked part-time at H & R Block. And when he learned the technique of the business, he put up his own Richman Tax Solutions in 2002 while he earned real estate and insurance and insurance provider licenses.

It was while his permanent legal residence application was pending when he was charged in the case.

His children, Erika, 18, Erik, 14, and Elijah, 3, are close to him as he is divorced from his first wife although they remain cordial and even live in the same residence so that he can be close their children and save money. His second marriage to Jennifer Dumdum is failing.

He also worked with ABS-CBN Foundation, which benefits children in the Philippines. Dumdum is also vice president of United Negrense of Illinois, a group from southern Philippines, Negros, which sends economic and development support in the area. He is also vice president of Taboso Society of America. Taboso is a small coastline town in Negros..# # #

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Editor’s Note: To contact the author, please e-mail him at: (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)