Award-winning gospel trumpeter Phil Driscoll was sentenced Jan. 25 to a year and a day in a federal prison after being convicted last June on charges of conspiracy and federal income tax evasion.
The indictment accused Driscoll of conspiring with his wife, Lynne, and her mother, the late Chris Blankenship, who was the ministry’s bookkeeper, to avoid reporting more than $1 million in personal income between 1996 and 1999, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Lynne Driscoll was acquitted on the conspiracy charge, and the tax-evasion charge against her was later dismissed.
Driscoll acknowledges that some accounting mistakes occurred, but he said they were not intentional. “I certainly did not at any time ever conspire with my family or anyone else for that matter to misrepresent anything to the government,” Driscoll said in a statement.
His Mighty Horn Ministries, now based in Eatonton, Ga., was targeted for investigation when the Driscolls could not return $3.5 million in donations the ministry received from David Mobley Sr., a hedge fund operator who was sentenced to federal prison for defrauding investors of $59 million.
During Driscoll’s sentencing, his unpaid tax total was reduced to between $30,000 and $80,000. The musician was not fined, and U.S. District Judge Curtis L. Collier said no restitution was due, the AP reported.
The judge gave Driscoll 45 days to report to prison and said he would decide by March 12 whether Driscoll could remain free while he appeals his conviction.
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