A 59-year-old Corona man who filed income tax returns without declaring hundreds of thousands of dollars that he had pocketed from selling memorabilia signed by Stan Lee — a major figure in the world of super heroes — was sentenced on Thursday, June 26, to a year in federal prison.
Mac Martin Anderson pleaded guilty in March to two counts of willfully subscribing to a false tax return under a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
During a hearing at U.S. District Court in downtown Riverside on Thursday, Judge Kenly Kiya Kato sentenced Anderson to the one-year term and ordered him to pay $482,833 in restitution to the government.
Prosecutors said the defendant netted about $1.2 million from his undeclared operation.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, from 2015 to 2018, Anderson had a personal relationship with the late Marvel Comics publisher and sold Marvel-related items bearing Lee’s autograph to various dealers, brokers and fans at comic conventions.
Anderson received payments from buyers, typically in cash or in checks.
Prosecutors said that from the $1.2 million in profit, Anderson owed the IRS $482,833 — the amount the court directed him to pay.
Lee — a major figure behind fictional super heroes Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Black Panther — died on Nov. 12, 2018, at 95.