Inventor Bets on Gold & Loses

Attorney and Idaho state lawmaker John Green, and his client, inventor Thomas Selgas, were convicted by a jury for conspiring to defraud the United States. Selgas was also convicted of tax evasion.

A long time tax defier, Selgas converted all his money to gold coins and  bought his Texas ranch with gold coins in an attempt to use discredited U.S. currency theories based on gold. But after racking up a tax debt of 1.1 million dollars, Selgas hid his funds by depositing them in Green’s Interest on Lawyers Trust Account (IOLTA). An IOLTA is an account used by a lawyer to hold money in trust for a client.

From 2007 to 2017 Selgas deposited funds from the sale of gold coins and other income into Green’s IOLTA account and Green paid Selgas’ personal expenses, including credit card bills, from the account.

Selgas and Green also filed a false tax return on behalf of MyMail, an intellectual property development and licensing company Selgas co-founded, leaving out more than a million dollars in income.

Selgas faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for each of the conspiracy and tax evasion counts. Green faces a maximum of five years in prison for the conspiracy count.