Sandra Westphal, 68, also known as Sandra Quintin, is facing nine counts of felony tax evasion and fraud, and according to court documents filed earlier this week, the trial is sure to be quite the production.
The U.S. Attorney's Office wrote in a status report for a hearing dated today that "the government anticipates calling approximately between 50 and 70 witnesses" for the trial, which is expected to take up a whopping 25 days.
Due to a review of about 35,000 documents -- the prosecution expects to submit 5,000 to 10,000 exhibits -- the trial hasn't officially been set, but is expected to be ready to kick-off sometime in June, according to court records.
In the meantime, Thomas Quintin is currently the suspect in a fresh tax fraud scheme that ostensibly raked in more than $1.3 million of federal money in 2009.
The U.S. Attorney's office says that scheme took place late last summer -- around the same time that Quintin was picked up after having walked away in July from a halfway house; he had been serving a six-year sentence from a 2007 conviction for an earlier tax fraud scheme, which was less lucrative -- $700,000.
Quintin, who was a fugitive for about three months, has pleaded guilty to escape. For more details, see this U.S. Attorneys Office report. But prosecutors haven't confirmed that criminal fraud charges are pending in the 2009 case.
Quintin fled to the Cayman Islands before facing charges for the evasion of fuel taxes in the early 1990s (check out this 1993 article), but was later captured in Canada and brought back to Denver, where he was convicted and ordered to repay $14 million to the federal government. See the Denver Post article.
Westphal hasn't been implicated in Quintin's more recent alleged schemes.
