Tax Lady Roni Deutch On New Mission Following Legal Trouble

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Before her legal trouble, she was the "Tax Lady" on TV. Now, Roni Deutch says she wants to get back in the public eye for the public good.

The Attorney General's Office filed its case in 2010 against Deutch after hundreds of Deutch's clients said they weren't getting what they paid for. Then the legal trouble hit and she lost everything.

"People know the name Roni Deutch, and I am going to use this name now, as a platform to help those without a voice," Deutch said.

The TV ads were everywhere until the state accused her of fraud in 2010. Facing a criminal and civil case, the public battle left her business crumbled. She settled the lawsuit, and her criminal charges were dropped.

Now Deutch is firing back.

"I pray there are hearings to see the deplorable acts that they did for 5 years in my case, so California taxpayers know how much money was really spent," Deutch said.

This month, Deutch sent a 35-page letter to the attorney general's office.

She says the letter "exposes" what she calls the ugly truth about prosecutorial misconduct in her case.

Deutch says prosecutors and the Sacramento Superior Court together ordered her to review hundreds-of-thousands of client files in an impossibly short time frame. That led to contempt charges.

"And after I was sued I was annihilated by a system that is powerful if you're on that side of the power," Deutch said.

In her settlement Deutch agreed to pay $2.5 million of the $34 million penalty first sought by the state. Now Deutch says she wants to be a voice for other defendants in the California legal system.

"I went through depression, anxiety, sleepless nights, my soul has been crushed, and here I am 6 years later," Deutch said.