A federal judge on Monday sentenced 65-year-old James W. Millegan, a former securities broker from McMinnville, to four years and three months in prison for evading $2.5 million in income taxes.
Millegan was found guilty of tax evasion after an eight-day trial in November.
He hid his income in multiple bank accounts and failed to pay taxes from July 2009 through September 2016, according to federal prosecutors.
Millegan used the money to support an extravagant lifestyle that included a $4.5 million home in Portland, a $1.3 million home on the Oregon coast and the purchase and restoration of Rolls Royce and Bentley cars.
In one example, he bought a classic 1938 Rolls Royce touring car, spent $800,000 restoring it and showed it in premier car shows in the United States, Great Britain and Europe, according to prosecutors.
On Millegan’s computer, federal investigators found an essay titled, “The Road to Ruin Restoration” that began, “My name is James Millegan and I have an addiction. I own three Rolls Royces,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Uram wrote in a sentencing memo.
He also spent his money on equestrian stabling, lessons and an attempt to establish a world-class equestrian competition center and resort near Sheridan, according to court documents.
Millegan told the court he thought he’d be able to pay off his tax debt but made bad financial choices. He said he regretted that he put his family through such difficult times.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Meredith Bateman said Millegan was playing a “file-returns-but-don’t- pay-taxes game” since 1998 and instead funneled the money to support his personal “obsessions.”
“Twenty-five years later and it’s time for Mr. Millegan to answer for that conduct,” she said.
Bateman called Millegan the fourth most significant tax evader to be sentenced in federal court in Oregon in the past 17 years.
U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut said it was clear that Millegan was motivated by greed.
“The lack of apparent comprehension that what you’ve done is wrong is frankly somewhat astounding to me,” the judge told him. “You consistently chose to evade your own responsibility to pay taxes for years and instead used that money to live a personally extravagant lifestyle.”
She ordered him to pay $2.5 million in restitution, plus $1.4 million to 12 former clients.
According to court documents, Millegan owned and operated J.W. Millegan Inc., a small commission-based investment advisory business that served clients in the Portland and Salem metropolitan areas. From 1996 to 2016, the investment firm was Millegan’s only significant source of income.
He ran the stock brokerage company for more than 20 years, employed several people and earned more than $1 million a year when business was at its peak, according to Oregon Federal Public Defender Lisa Hay. But he spent money freely without sufficient guardrails and took on millions of dollars of personal debt, she wrote in a court brief.
He lost his primary home and beach house to foreclosure, and in ensuing years, he disposed of his cars, moved his office to a trailer, sold personal belongings on eBay and shuttered his business, according to Hay.
He’s now living on $2,200 a month in Social Security income and living with his wife in a room of a rental house paid for by his two sons, Hay said.
The sentence went forward after Immergut denied requests by Hay to find the government in breach of the plea agreement Millegan reached with prosecutors or to allow Millegan to be released from the deal. Hay argued that prosecutors provided the judge with victim impact statements from his prior employees, though Millegan did not acknowledge guilt to any crimes against them.
As part of the plea agreement, Millegan agreed to pay $1.4 million in restitution to 12 of his prior employees, though he never admitted guilt to additional wire fraud charges, Hay said. Twelve counts of wire fraud were dismissed as part of the agreement.
Millegan must surrender to start his sentence on June 8.
— Maxine Bernstein
Email mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
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