Ex-chief sentenced to home confinement in tax case

EAST ST. LOUIS — A federal judge in East St. Louis has sentenced a former police chief to six months of electronically monitored home confinement for filing a false income tax return.

Forty-three-year-old Robert Cummings of Alorton also must pay roughly $25,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service and spend four years on probation.

In pleading guilty in February, Cummings admitted that from 1999 to 2006 he filed fraudulent U.S. income tax returns by using an inapplicable filing status and claiming false dependents, deductions, credits and expenses.

Cummings claimed a minor child that he knew was no relation to him and falsely claimed he paid day-care expenses for that child.

Besides his post in Alorton, Cummings also has served as a part-time police officer for Brooklyn police for about two years.