The father of the teenaged arsonist who killed five people in a house fire in Denver’s Green Valley Ranch neighborhood was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison for tax fraud.
Thuan Bui, father to Kevin Bui, became the third member of the Bui family to go to prison in the wake of Kevin Bui’s actions on Aug. 5, 2020, when the then-16-year-old and two other teens set fire to a home on Truckee Street in the middle of the night. The blaze killed two children and three adults.
Kevin Bui pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 60 years in prison last year. His sister, Tanya Bui, was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison in 2022 for federal drug and weapons crimes. Court records showed the siblings worked together to sell drugs across the Denver metro region.
Thuan Bui, 60, was sentenced to three years in prison Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to a single felony count of aiding or assisting in the preparation of false documents, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado.
Prosecutors believe he prepared hundreds of false tax returns between 2016 and 2021 in which he understated his clients’ tax liability by making false claims about income or loss on a business, according to a news release from the office.
Prosecutors noted that Bui’s tax preparation business operated under several different names. Thuan Bui will also pay a $50,000 fine and serve a year of supervised release after he leaves prison, court records show. He was also ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution.
“This defendant willfully and repeatedly abused his clients’ trust when his job was to help them accurately file their annual tax returns,” Acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell said in the news release. “I encourage all taxpayers to be vigilant during the ongoing tax season to make sure their information is captured and reported accurately.”
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