Donald Trump Opponent's Sudden Arrest Raises Questions: 'Retaliation'

A long-shot Republican presidential candidate who has filed multiple lawsuits hoping to disqualify Donald Trump from running for the White House has claimed he is now facing political persecution after being charged with federal tax crimes.

John Anthony Castro, 40, has been charged in Texas with 33 counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation and presentation of a false and fraudulent return for alleged crimes which prosecutors described as "stunning in their brazenness."

Castro is accused of defrauding the government by using his virtual tax preparation business, Castro & Company LLC, to offer customers higher refunds than they were owed, or could receive elsewhere, as well as to split the additional refund with taxpayers. Castro is alleged to have achieved larger refunds by generating false deductions without the taxpayer's knowledge.

Castro told Newsweek that the indictments against him are political retaliation for his taking on Trump.

He has made headlines in recent months for filing at least 27 lawsuits across the country attempting to ban Trump from running for office over allegations his actions over the January 6 attack violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which states that a person who "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" after taking an oath of office to support the Constitution should be barred from running for office again.

Several of Castro's lawsuits—filed in states such as Florida, Arizona and Nevada—have been thrown out by the courts. Castro was not involved in the insurrection lawsuits that were able to remove Trump from the 2024 ballots in Colorado and Maine, which the former president is appealing against.

Castro, a Republican, has claimed in his lawsuits that he would be directly impacted if the "constitutionally ineligible" Trump was also on the 2024 ballot as it would affect his own White House ambitions. In November, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld a previous ruling to throw out Castro's lawsuit against Trump in New Hampshire as the 40-year-old's attempts to compete for voters in the state were essentially "non-existent."

In an interview with Newsweek, Castro defended himself against the federal tax charges, claiming the allegations are based on a "misunderstanding" of tax law by some of his clients.

Castro said the issue with the Internal Revenue Service was resolved in 2021 after the government saw he "immediately took corrective action" and filed amended returns. Castro said that he believes that the charges now being brought against him are a "retaliation" for his election lawsuits against the former president.

Leigha Simonton, the top federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Texas, who announced the indictment against Castro, was nominated by President Joe Biden.

"Fast forward three years later, I decided to start suing Trump in September 2023, and that is when they decide that they're going to now impanel a grand jury and present that issue and try to secure an indictment," Castro told Newsweek. "And that is just totally bogus.

"We discussed the issue in 2020. It was resolved in 2021. Why wait three more years to issue the indictment? And why impanel the grand jury right when I start taking on Trump? It's pure and total political retaliation."

Castro said the claims are similar to allegations that Trump had used the IRS to target his perceived enemies—former FBI Director James Comey and former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe who were both fired from their roles by the former president—by subjecting them both to rare and intensive audits. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, a watchdog for the IRS, said in 2022 that Comey's and McCabe's 2017 and 2019 audits respectively were random rather than any act of misconduct.

"This is not by happenstance, this is not by pure chance at all. This is intentional targeting and political retaliation and abuse of the grand jury process," Castro said. "They're just concerned with the headline 'person suing Trump is arrested on tax charges.'

"It's their way of trying to sideline me and basically just silence me."

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas declined to comment when contacted by Newsweek.

According to the indictment, an undercover agent reached out to Castro's company in 2018 regarding reductions.

Castro told the agent he would only get a $300 deduction if he used another tax preparer, but claimed they could get more than $6000 via his company.

Castro filed the agent's tax return claiming $29,339 in fraudulent deductions, according to prosecutors. The IRS issued a refund of $6,007, for which Castro received $2,999 for his services, and the agent was given the remaining $3,008.

"Mr. Castro continued in a similar pattern with dozens of other taxpayers, resulting in hundreds of thousands of improperly paid claims," the attorney's office said.

"I'm looking forward to this going to trial and proving to a jury that this is nothing more than malicious prosecution, and when I'm found to be innocent, we're planning to sue the government for malicious prosecution and to hold all of them criminally accountable for abusing their position," Castro said.

Castro faces up to 99 years in prison if found guilty of all 33 counts.