The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced  that Wade Vincent Shang, 48, was sentenced yesterday to two years in prison for income tax evasion.  The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge William H. Alsup following a eight-day federal jury trial in San Francisco on five counts of tax evasion in violation of Title 26, Section 7201.  The jury found Mr. Shang guilty on three of the five counts of tax evasion. 

On August 14, 2001, a federal grand jury indicted Mr. Shang, a Certified Public Accountant and licensed attorney in California and Texas, residing in South San Francisco, California.  He was charged with willfully attempting to evade income taxes due and owed by signing and filing false and fraudulent U.S. Individual Income Tax Returns, Form 1040s, which were filed with the Internal Revenue Service, stating an amount of tax was due to the United States when he knew his taxable income was substantially in excess of that stated on his 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999 tax returns and that substantial tax was due for each of those years.  

Because the Defendant was convicted for tax evasion and abused his position of public trust as an attorney and Certified Public Accountant, as well as attempted to obstruct justice by influencing witnesses, Judge William H. Alsup sentenced the Defendant to two years in federal prison, a fine of $10,000, and  two years of supervised release.   

The prosecution was the result of an investigation by special agents of the IRS  Criminal Investigation Division.  Jay Weill and Thomas Moore are the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who prosecuted the case with the assistance of Kathy Tat.

A copy of this press release and related court documents may be found on the U.S. Attorney's website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.