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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune Published: May 30, 2012 Updated: May 30, 2012 - 6:00 AM

A car dealer accused of nearly $9 million in tax refund fraud whose freedom vexed Tampa's police chief for months was arrested Monday on 32 federal criminal charges.

Authorities say Russell B. Simmons Jr., 42, owner of Simmons Auto Sales on North 34th Street, used the proceeds of tax fraud to buy a $60,000 Bentley coupe and a lot of diamond jewelry, including a $30,000, 18-karat gold Rolex perpetual date watch with a diamond dial; a 14-karat gold men's bracelet with 2,420 diamonds; a 14-karat chain and "RS" pendant with 703 diamonds; and a 14-karat ring with 110 diamonds.

He was also found with a lot of cash: Simmons and some friends were stopped in November at the airport in Orlando en route to a boxing match in Los Vegas. The group was carrying $75,000 among them. The others told investigators the money came from Simmons, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mandy Riedel said.

Simmons is "very big to us," said John Joyce, special agent in charge of the Tampa office of the U.S. Secret Service, which helped investigate the case. Joyce called him "one of the bigger players" targeted through Operation Rainmaker, a joint federal, state and local investigation into tax refund fraud.

Defense attorney Nicholas Matassini Jr. said Simmons plans to "vigorously defend the case." He added, "Clearly, both sides have a lot of work to do."

Simmons was among a number of business owners arrested in the joint investigation last summer, initially on state identity theft and credit card fraud charges, after Secret Service agents searched his business Aug. 31. However, the charges were dismissed because of the pending federal investigation, and Simmons was allowed to go free.

As the case wore on, Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor went public with her irritation at the slow pace of the investigation into a piece of the tax fraud scourge spreading among street criminals. Authorities say hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus income tax returns have been processed from the Tampa area alone.

"We have an individual that we know did in the ballpark of $9 million in tax fraud," Castor said in February. "He was arrested and charged in September. And there's no reason for us to believe that he's slowed down at all."

In March, Tampa Detective Sal Augeri testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in Washington about tax refund fraud and described the Simmons case without naming him. "We have no reason to believe he has stopped committing this crime," Augeri said then.

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Car dealer arrested in $9 million tax fraud case