Robert Beale's world is in collapse.

Not so very long ago, he had a wife, a family and substantial wealth. He was a leader of his church and a successful business executive.

Then he decided he had the legal right to stop paying his taxes.

Now Beale wears the orange jumpsuit of a jail inmate, back in custody after 14 months as a fugitive. His wife has divorced him and seized his assets. His son has ousted him from the Maple Grove computer firm Beale founded.

He spends his days in a jail cell, preparing for a trial that could send him to federal prison for a decade or more for tax evasion and unlawful flight.

"The hardest part is thinking about family and friends on the outside," said Beale, 64. "Emotionally, it's horrible ..."

Beale said: "In hindsight, I believe I was not wise. I'm sorry I even took this mission. ... I was very naive."

Regrets taking on IRS

Beale got involved in the tax protest movement years ago. He failed to show up for his federal trial in Minneapolis in August 2006, resulting in a 14½-month manhunt.

Now held at the Sherburne County jail in Elk River, Beale talked about the reasons he went on the lam (he needed more time to prepare his case), his life as a fugitive (he took a cruise) and how he got caught (he said his ex-wife tipped off authorities). He said he regretted taking on the IRS and failing to pay his taxes.

"I never imagined they would take such a hard line," he said. "I assumed if they ended up disagreeing with me, I would just pay the taxes."

While no household name, Beale has been in the spotlight before. He was Minnesota campaign manager for Pat Robertson, the conservative television evangelist who ran unsuccessfully for president in 1988.

For about 10 years until the mid-1990s, Beale said he was a major contributor and board member of Living Word Christian Center, a large Brooklyn Park church where Mac Hammond is senior pastor.

Hammond said through his daughter-in-law and assistant, Kristin Hammond, that he and Beale "had points of disagreement and taxes were one of them." Hammond said "he was very sorry for what has happened to Bob."

Beale, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, was an engineer with an entrepreneurial touch. A firm called Artist Graphics that he started in the early 1980s had revenue of up to $35 million a year by the end of the decade, according to his eldest son, Theodore Beale, who now lives in Italy.

As the computer graphics industry shifted from computer cards to chips, the firm folded. But Beale had started Comtrol, which makes devices that connect peripherals like printers and modems to computers. Comtrol's revenues rose to about $25 million, and at its peak it had up to 100 employees, Theodore Beale said.

Beale's issues with the IRS surfaced in the early 1990s when he had a dispute with the IRS over an Artist Graphics facility located in Ireland, Theodore Beale said.

Anti-tax crusaders

Beale later began reading books about the tax code. One was by Irwin Schiff, one of the nation's leading anti-tax crusaders. Beale attended one of Schiff's seminars.

In February 2006, Schiff, 78, was sentenced to more than 13 years in federal prison for advising people that no U.S. law requires them to pay income tax.

Meanwhile, Beale read more books like Schiff's, and said he concluded that the federal income tax "applies to a profit from business that's related to the federal government and it also applies to any employee of the federal government."

He began filing annual tax statements, he said, claiming he did not think his income was taxable because he was not a federal employee. He said he believed he was on a mission.

The IRS had different ideas. In January 2006, Beale was indicted by the U.S. attorney's office for tax evasion. His passport was confiscated.