Grand Jury Indicts Former Raisio Chemicals Northwest Sales Exec for False Tax Returns

On June 7, a federal grand jury in Portland, Oregon returned an indictment against Trevor Smith, a former Raisio Chemicals Northwest Inc. sales executive, charging him with two counts of filing false federal income tax returns in 1999 and 2000, understating his income by more than $332,000. The understated income consisted of payments he allegedly received from John R. Olsen, while employed at Raisio, relating to Raisio's purchases of dry anthraquinone, a pulping additive used to increase pulp yield. Mr. Olsen is the former general manager of Chemical Products Technologies (“CPT”), based in Cartersville, Georgia. The charges announced by the DOJ are the third to arise out of investigations in the Northern District of Georgia and the District of Oregon conducted by the Antitrust Division's Atlanta Field Office, with the assistance of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division.
In June 2005, Patrick Crowe III pleaded guilty to a two-count felony charge for his participation in two conspiracies to commit mail fraud and deprive CPT of the honest services of its employee. He was sentenced to four months in prison, two months in a halfway house and to pay restitution to CPT in the amount of $52,130. In March 2006, Mr. Olsen pleaded guilty to two conspiracies to commit mail fraud and deprive CPT of the honest services of its employees and to two counts of filing false U.S. federal income tax returns. Mr. Olsen is still awaiting sentencing. The Atlanta Field Office of the Antitrust Division is conducting an ongoing investigation concerning price fixing, bid rigging, tax offenses, or other offenses in the anthraquinone or glyphosate (a herbicide used to control grasses and weeds) industries.