Former state Sen. Mandy Dawson was arrested Wednesday on a federal income tax evasion charge, federal officials said.
Dawson, 53, was arrested at her home in Daytona Beach, where she now lives, and was scheduled to make a court appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald P. Dietrich in federal court in Orlando later Wednesday.
Dawson, a Democrat, had also been under investigation by federal officials in connection with corruption allegations, but if her failure to pay taxes was related to money allegedly given to her by a lobbyist, federal officials didn’t say.
U.S. Attorney Wilfredo Ferrer in Miami announced that Dawson is charged with tax evasion in 2004 and 2005 and failure to file tax returns for tax years 2006, 2007, and 2008. If convicted, she faces a possible 8 years in prison.
According to the indictment, Dawson “willfully attempted to evade the payment of $11,889 and $12,966 in taxes due and owing for calendar years 2004 and 2005, respectively” and for failing to file in the other three years.
Dawson was in the Senate at the time she is alleged to have failed to pay the taxes.
Dawson, who served in the House before being elected to the Senate in 1998, was embroiled already in the scandal involving Alan Mendelsohn, a Broward County eye doctor and political fundraiser who was sentenced in June to four years in prison. Mendelsohn said in open court last year that he funneled more than $80,000 to Dawson, at her insistence, to curry favor for legislation he was pushing.
Mendelsohn is set to start serving his sentence early next year.
Dawson, who was forced out of the Legislature by term limits in 2008, represented Broward County and was known for pushing legislation aimed at protecting children. She also was known, however, for battling addiction, and for attendance problems while in the Legislature. Dawson was arrested in 2002 on charges of altering a prescription, and has spent time in a drug rehabilitation program. She served in the House from 1992-1998 and was the first black woman elected to the Legislature from Broward County.
It wasn’t clear Wednesday who Dawson’s lawyer is. She has kept out of the spotlight in recent years and the News Service has been unable to contact her for previous stories.
