Alaska plastic surgeon convicted of wire fraud and tax evasion

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A federal jury convicted an Alaskan plastic surgeon Wednesday of four counts of wire fraud and three counts of tax evasion, following a probe by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Michael Brandner, 67, was convicted following a seven-day jury trial before U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason of the District of Alaska. According to the indictment and evidence introduced at trial, in late 2007, shortly after Brandner’s wife filed for divorce, he collected millions of dollars in marital assets and secretly drove from Tacoma, Washington, to Costa Rica.  In Costa Rica, he opened two bank accounts into which he deposited more than $350,000 in cash and hid a thousand ounces of gold in a safe deposit box. He then traveled to Panama where he opened an account under the name of a sham corporation and, in 2008, deposited $4.6 million into that account.

Brandner concealed both the existence of the bank accounts and the interest he earned on those accounts from the court in the divorce proceedings and from the IRS. Brandner owed the IRS $600,000 in additional taxes for the 2008 through 2010 tax years.  He presented the divorce court with a fabricated promissory note to mislead the court into believing he had invested more than $3 million in the foreign corporation.

In 2011, once the divorce was final, Brandner repatriated more than $4.6 million, only to have the funds seized by HSI special agents. He then lied to federal agents about his control of the funds.

The defendant, who is being sentenced March 7, 2016, faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud and five years for each count of tax evasion and a fine of up to $250,000, or twice the gain or loss caused by the offense, on each of the seven counts of conviction.

The probe was conducted by IRS-Criminal Investigation and HSI special agents based in Orange County, California. The prosecution was handled by Department of Justice Trial Attorney Ignacio Perez de la Cruz of the Tax Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder of the District of Alaska.