Orono man pleads guilty to conspiracy and tax fraud in $13 million scheme

A Twin Cities business consultant who was accused of evading more than $13 million in income taxes has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of filing a false tax return.

No sentencing date has been set for Scott Phillip Flynn, 55, of Orono, who entered the plea Tuesday in front of U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery.

A 13-count indictment in December 2016 accused Flynn of hiding $50 million in income and capital gains. Flynn's late father, Phillip J. Flynn, also was accused of participating in the scheme by allowing his son to put assets in his name.

According to Flynn's plea, between 2005 and 2015, he evaded millions of dollars in income taxes by hiding shares of stock. Federal prosecutors said in a news release that Flynn had a complex scheme with a labyrinth of businesses. He would send money to Australia then bring it back to the United States through Costa Rica to support a "luxurious lifestyle unencumbered" by income tax.

Flynn "carefully tracked, and always controlled" the brokerage and bank accounts of his Australian nominees, the indictment said. He transferred roughly $14.8 million that was largely spent for his personal benefit.

Flynn is also accused of buying a $2.7 million Orono home in 2007 by using one company, Watertown Properties, and filing a sham mortgage with another, Desert Inn Holdings, as purported evidence of Watertown Properties' indebtedness for the funds used to buy the home. He allegedly caused the transfer of more than $620,000 from various entities to a Wells Fargo Bank account used to improve and maintain the Orono home.

In 1999, Flynn was sentenced to two years in federal prison after a jury found him guilty of charges including wire fraud and securities fraud, according to court records.

Shortly after the indictment was filed, Flynn's attorney Earl Gray called it "an unprecedented abuse of power."