Former IRS agent gets three years in prison for filing false tax returns

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A former Internal Revenue Service agent was sentenced to three years in federal prison for filing fraudulent tax returns for himself and unsuspecting relatives.

Albert Bront, 51, a former Santa Clarita resident, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II in Los Angeles. In addition to the prison term, Wright ordered Bront to pay more than $127,000 in restitution to the IRS.

Bront pleaded guilty in January to one count of subscribing to a false return and two counts of assisting others in subscribing to false tax returns. In his plea agreement, Bront admitted that he filed 15 false tax returns and kept the refunds for himself.

In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said Bront should be sentenced to a lengthy term in federal prison in part because he was an IRS agent who broke the laws he was sworn to uphold.

In a 2005 tax return, Bront falsely claimed approximately $16,000 in mortgage interest for a home in Santa Clarita even though the property had been given to him by his mother, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release. Bront also falsely claimed an approximately $12,000 deduction for “alimony paid,” the release said.

-- Stuart Pfeifer