Baltimore resident Michael Parker, formerly the chief operating officer of a Virginia firm specializing in tax breaks, pleaded guilty this week to defrauding the Internal Revenue Service of millions of dollars by fashioning phony tax shelters, the Justice Department said. During a hearing Tuesday in a U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, he admitted that he conspired with an accountant and attorney to pull off the scam, the agency said. As an officer with TransCapital Corp., Parker told prosecutors, he helped put together and market a tax shelter from 1998 through 2006.

- Jamie Smith Hopkins | The Baltimore Sun