Beavers Found Guilty Of Tax Evasion

By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 21, 2013 9:45PM

William Beavers

The “Hog with the Big Nuts” now faces being neutered. Cook County Commissioner William Beavers was convicted of income tax evasion this afternoon. (A shocker, we know.)

Beavers was convicted on three counts of filing false tax returns between 2006 and 2008 and one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct and impede the Internal Revenue Service. Beavers's defense team, in their closing arguments, tried to portray him as an old man who made a simple mistake, didn’t mean to defraud the IRS and may have a slight gambling addiction. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Hamilton called BS on that and noted Beavers has been an elected official as an alderman or county commissioner for over 30 years and knew what he was doing when he spent more than $225,000 in campaign funds to boost his pension and cover his gambling debts, and used his $1,200 monthly county contingency account for personal purposes between during that time frame without paying taxes on them.

The most damning evidence against Beavers were his gambling losses — he lost over a half-million dollars at Horseshoe Casino between 2006 and 2008 — and his 2005 income tax return, to disprove his defense he made a mistakes on his 2006-2008 tax returns.

Beavers, who crowed before the trial he would take the stand in his defense, didn’t do so Wednesday. Asked why after the verdict was reached, Beavers said it was because Judge James Zagel was “really unfair.” Zagel placed a gag order on the trial last week after defense attorney Sam Adam, noting the lack of African American males on the jury, commented the jury selection was “rigged.” Adam was admonished several times by Zagel in his closing statements for making irrelevant arguments and, according to the Sun-Times, adopted an exaggerated robotic voice at one point after a Zagel rebuke.