Man accused of cheating Alaska Natives sentenced to prison – Native Times

SEATTLE (AP) A man, who federal prosecutors label a cheat and a bully, will spend time in prison for tax crimes.

Brent Meisner, who was found to have left about $170,000 in income off his 2009 tax return, was sentenced Friday to 1 years prison, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.

Meisner, a former executive with an Alaskan Native corporation subsidiary, was convicted of the tax crime in February.

Though Meisner was acquitted of conspiracy and extortion-related charges in Tacoma, Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Reese Jennings and Siddharth Velamoor maintain Meisner defrauded Doyon Ltd., a Fairbanks corporation wholly owned by Alaska Natives.

"Meisner was not merely a tax cheat," the prosecutors said in court papers. "He was a bully, a narcissist, and a white-collar gangster. He felt entitled to things to which he clearly was not. He took things from others, justifying the theft with an oversized sense of self-entitlement and self-worth."

Doyon was established in the 1970s to protect the land rights of Alaska Natives who were In danger of losing their property when Alaska became a state in 1959.

In 2008, Doyon bought Cherokee General Corp., a construction company that specialized in government work. Meisner was hired as president of the company, which was renamed Doyon/Cherokee.

As president, Meisner selected subcontractors. He was able to boost the business of other firms by picking them for lucrative government jobs awarded to Doyon/Cherokee.

In 2009, Doyon/Cherokee was the prime contractor on large projects at several Seattle-area military installations. According to prosecutors, Meisner had "tremendous power in deciding which subcontractors would get work, who would supply materials, and who would not."

Jennings and Velamoor accused Meisner of taking a $200,000 kitchen remodeling job in his home in Gig Harbor as a kickback from Department of Defense subcontractors. Meisner was convicted of tax crimes after he failed to report the remodeling work to the IRS.

Port Angeles Defense Attorney Karen Unger, who represents Meisner, asked that her client be sentenced to probation.

"Mr. Meisner has spent his entire life as a responsible and hard-working individual. He managed to serve his country, find a career, without the benefit of a college education, and earn the kind of income that he would never have knowingly jeopardized."

Meisner is no longer allowed to obtain government contracts due to his involvement in the matter.

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Man accused of cheating Alaska Natives sentenced to prison - Native Times