Tax Evasion

A former Hawthorne school board member pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of tax evasion, perjury and filing a false document, authorities said. Frank DeSimone, 33, was indicted Friday on six felony charges, including allegations that he failed to report $400,000 in income between 2003 and 2006 and lied on a city tax document in 2006 when he claimed he had sold his company. Los Angeles County prosecutors said the charges grew out of an investigation started in 2005 into whether DeSimone had moved to Cypress while serving as a Hawthorne school board member.

"Crocodile Dundee" star Paul Hogan challenged Australian tax authorities Friday to track him down in the United States after a newspaper report that he was under investigation for tax evasion. The 68-year-old actor has repeatedly denied that he dodged taxes. The Australian national newspaper reported that Australian tax authorities had asked for help from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in obtaining Hogan's banking records. Four companies related to Hogan have been ordered to hand over documents, it said, citing court documents.

A Stanford law school graduate who allegedly boasted online that she paid off her student loans by working as a high-priced call girl pleaded guilty Monday to tax evasion and agreed to pay $313,134 in penalties. Cristina Warthen, 35, who went by the name Brazil and advertised on a website called TouchofBrazil, traveled across the country to provide her services from 2001 to 2003, according to court documents filed by federal prosecutors in Northern California. She now lives in Los Angeles.

The former president of the union that represents Los Angeles County government workers has agreed to plead guilty to federal fraud and tax charges in connection with an alleged scheme to collect illicit consulting payments from a labor-related nonprofit, officials said Thursday. Alejandro Stephens, a longtime leader of the Service Employees International Union local, signed an agreement to plead guilty to one count of filing a false income tax return and two counts of mail fraud, the U.S. attorney's office said.

A former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive avoided a prison term Friday when a federal judge resentenced him for wire fraud and tax evasion. The judge added only 1,500 hours of community service to Tom Coughlin's punishment, and the former vice chairman said he was grateful. "Judge, I just want to thank you for your fairness," he said. In 2006, U.S. District Judge Robert T. Dawson had sentenced Coughlin to 27 months of home detention, five years' probation, a $50,000 fine and $400,000 restitution.

When you've got Republicans who won't even close a tax loophole for yacht buyers, there isn't much hope of honestly solving California's budget mess. How can anyone take seriously lawmakers who insist on protecting a "sloophole," as Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez calls it? Why should anyone regard them as anything but rigid ideologues, unwilling to compromise even as the state tumbles toward bankruptcy?

Investigators have traced more than $296 million in German assets to secretive foundations in Liechtenstein in a widening, worldwide tax-evasion investigation in which 163 Germans have admitted guilt, prosecutors said Tuesday. Separately, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service announced that it was initiating enforcement action against 100 American taxpayers in connection with Liechtenstein accounts.

Special prosecutors said today that they indicted Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee on charges of tax evasion and breach of trust, while clearing South Korea's biggest industrial conglomerate of bribery allegations. The prosecutors said in a statement that they would not arrest Lee as it would "cause enormous disruptions" in Samsung corporate management and have "negative repercussions on our economy."

The FBI, IRS and U.S. attorney's office have begun a joint investigation into potential income tax evasion and fraud stemming from the alleged misuse of charitable organization funds by basketball star O.J. Mayo's former advisor, an attorney familiar with the investigation said Tuesday night. "They seem to have made a high priority out of this and seem very eager to work it," said Anthony Salerno, a Los Angeles criminal attorney representing Louis Johnson, a former Mayo confidant.

Federal prosecutors secured guilty pleas Friday from a Tel Aviv-based banker and a New York-based rabbi for their involvement in a decade-long international tax-evasion scam centered around an Orthodox Jewish sect that defrauded the U.S. government of millions in tax revenue.