A retired Navy commander and local outspoken tax protestor was sentenced to seven years in prison Thursday for a crime that Senior U.S. District Judge Lacey Collier said “goes directly to the heart of the existence of our country.” Dr. Ward Dean, 63, of Pensacola also was ordered to pay nearly $300,000 in taxes that were assessed on the $1.3 million income he earned between 1997 and 2002 but never paid.
“If we have no one complying with the accepted and long-established tax code, we would have anarchy and we would have no country,” Collier said in imposing the sentence, which was more than double the sentencing guidelines’ maximum imprisonment of nearly 3 1/2 years.
Dean, a retired Navy flight surgeon, was convicted in December of six counts of tax evasion and one count of attempting to obstruct the Internal Revenue Service in the collection of taxes.
Poster Comment:
Judge Collier: Past Employment Positions: First Judicial Circuit, Florida, Judge, 1984 - 1991 First Judicial Circuit, Florida, Assistant State Attorney, 1977 - 1984 United States Navy, Lieutenant Commander, 1955 - 1975