IRS plant testifies about Renaissance

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jan 17, 2008 by Steve Fry

By Steve Fry

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

KANSAS CITY, Kan. - Susan Kelly walked into the Fleming Mansion, the Topeka home office for Renaissance, The Tax People, in 1999, asking to talk to a company official about the firm's tax-reduction product.

Kelly eventually talked that day to Michael Craig Cooper, company founder, president and chief executive officer, who assured her the government approved the tax-reduction program, which was marketed as the Tax Relief System.

On Wednesday, Kelly, whose real name is Susan Prine and who is a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation division, testified in federal court, where Cooper faces 148 felony charges alleging he defrauded the IRS and Renaissance customers.

As Susan Kelly, Prine was assigned in 1999 to work undercover in the investigation of Renaissance in Topeka and the Kansas City area.

Prine on June 14, 1999, tried to phone Todd Eugene Strand, Renaissance vice president and later national marketing director for Renaissance, but the two calls went to hold where she heard recordings touting the tax-reduction system and the company's rapid growth.

Prine the next day went to the Fleming Mansion, 1001 S.W. Gage, to try to talk to Strand, but he was in Florida. During a tour, Prine met Cooper, who told her about his background in sales and the tax system.

Prine went to a promotional meeting at the Doubletree Hotel in Overland Park, where five people gave testimonials raving about the product. She eventually paid $300 to get the kit and agreed to pay $100 a month for tax-saving tips and audit protection in case the IRS investigated a customer's tax return.

Prine on Sept. 2, 1999, received the Tax Relief System, which consisted of eight audiotapes, a videotape and a manual. Jurors spent all of Wednesday afternoon listening to eight tapes from a similar tax-reduction kit obtained in 2000.

On an audiotape, Cooper said he had been an accounting major in college, taught tax accounting for three years and had been audited two times without incident.

"People say (the Tax Relief System) sounds too good to be true. How long will they (the government) let you do this?" Cooper said, chuckling.

Due to snow that started Wednesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia told jurors that court today might be postponed or started later than normal. Two jurors slipped and fell on a sidewalk outside the Robert J. Dole U.S. Courthouse on Wednesday morning.

The parents of Cooper, 53, sat behind their son's defense table for about half of Wednesday.

Cooper is charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the IRS and commit mail fraud and wire fraud, 56 counts of assisting in the preparing of false federal income tax returns, 36 counts of mail fraud, 11 counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, 41 counts of engaging in monetary transactions of criminally derived property worth more than $10,000 and two counts of money laundering.

Steve Fry can be reached

at (785) 295-1206

or steve.fry@cjonline.com.