Tax crime doesn’t pay — coverage of tax fraud, evasion, and financial crime prosecutions, and what they mean for the rest of us.
I know, I know. This doesn’t even feel like news. We’ve seen it coming for a while now, ever since Jenkens & Gilchrist made an announcement on its web site in 2007. At the time of the closing, Jenkens agreed to pay a civil penalty of $76 million and cooperate with the IRS and the…
It turns out that May was a pretty good month for Helio Castroneves. On last Friday, the last remaining criminal charge against Castroneves – for conspiracy – was dropped. The month before, Castroneves was acquitted of six counts of tax evasion; the jury did not reach a verdict on the conspiracy charge. The feds initially…
A Seattle area divorce lawyer was convicted earlier in the year of tax evasion charges, making false statements and obstructing justice. Felix Landau may serve up to 18 months in prison for the charges and must pay $61,232 in restitution. He could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison. Just another run…
Harriette Walters was living the good life – but it was on the dime of the taxpayers. Literally. Walters was the tax assessment manager for the District of Columbia. So she “worked” for the government. Only she didn’t really work. Instead, she recruited 10 other people in what is being called the “largest fraud scheme…
The crackdown on tax shelters continues with a Manhattan jury finding four members of the Ernst & Young accounting firm guilty of all criminal charges following a ten-week trial. The four, Robert Coplan, Martin Nissenbaum, Richard Shapiro, and Brian Vaughn, worked in the SISG (Strategic Individual Solutions Group) set up by Ernst & Young in…
Anthony L. Jinwright, a native of Wilmington, NC (just outside my hometown) was indicted this week on charges of tax evasion for the years 2001-2005. A federal grand jury in Charlotte, NC indicted Jinwright on 14 counts, including tax evasion, filing false tax returns, mail fraud, and making false statements to federal agents. He allegedly…
The jury has finally reached a verdict in the Helio Castroneves tax evasion case. There were no scorecards but Castroneves still came out a winner: a federal jury acquitted Castroneves on six counts of tax evasion but hung on one count of conspiracy following a seven-week trial and six days of deliberation. Chances are that…
A federal jury has reached a partial verdict in the Helio Castroneves tax evasion trial but Federal Judge Donald Graham isn’t saying much more than that. The jury has reached a decision on two charges but appears to be hung on the four other tax evasion counts and one conspiracy count. The Judge has asked…
What’s worse than your Governor trying to sell a Senate seat? Making you pay for his defense. Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (yes, I can now write “former”) has run out of cash. His campaign funds were frozen at the request of prosecutors. And his legal bills are mounting. So, what’s a politician to do?…
Apparently, it’s better to be naked on a beach in Borneo eating bugs than wearing orange in a prison cell in West Virginia… Richard Hatch, the first winner of Survivor has made yet another request to be released from prison. Hatch is currently serving just over four years in a West Virginia federal prison for…