of defendants’ overall scheme to defraud the government. This scheme was both dependent on and completed by the monthly mailing of the false Virgin Islands gross receipts tax returns. Finally, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Santos, we recognize that the “proceeds” from the mail fraud in this case also amount to “profits” of mail fraud. See —— U.S.-, 128 S.Ct. 2020, 2025, 2036, 170 L.Ed.2d 912. By intentionally misrepresenting the total amount of Plaza Extra Supermarkets’ gross receipts through the mailing of fraudulent tax returns, the defendants were able to secretly “pocket” the 4% gross receipts taxes on the unreported amounts which were the property of the Virgin Islands government. Cf., Pasquantino v. United States, 544 U.S. 349, 125 S.Ct. 1766, 161 L.Ed.2d 619 (2005) (<HOLDING>). Other than some small expenses incurred in
holding a corporation excused from a tax penalty when the sole people in charge of filing and paying taxes were embezzling funds from the corporation thus disabling the corporations ability to pay recognizing no material difference between defrauding a government of taxes due and embezzling money from the treasury the supreme court held that unpaid tax constituted property under the wire fraud statute holding that in the context of mail and wire fraud a plaintiff must have justifiably relied to his detriment on the defendants material misrepresentations holding that where defendant made false representations to attain government contract but performed satisfactorily the government had been deprived of money or property for purposes of mail and wire fraud holding that defendant could be charged for making false statements to treasury officials under the tax evasion statute or the statute prohibiting false statements to government officials