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.

Ai Weiwei says he can sue the government over his ongoing tax case. But there's a catch -- the dissident Chinese artist must produce an official company seal seized by authorities when Ai was arrested last year. "We can't get the seal back," Ai told Reuters . "It's in the hands of the police. It's very much a catch-22. " Ai sued officials over a $2.4-million tax evasion penalty on Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., the company that produced his art. Lu Qing, Ai's wife and the company's legal representative, was set to hear Friday if the court would accept the lawsuit and allow Ai access to documents he says Beijing authorities have denied.

"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.

Dr. Louis J. Cella Jr., an Orange County physician, hospital developer and political donor whose convictions on tax evasion and Medicare fraud charges in the late 1970s set off a cascade of corruption investigations that altered the county's political landscape, died Nov. 7 in Palm Springs after a long neurological illness. He was 87. His death was confirmed by the Wiefels funeral home in Palm Springs, where he settled after completing his prison term. Cella was the state's largest political campaign contributor in 1974, when he lent and donated more than $500,000 to 60 candidates and causes in that year's primary and general elections.

The owner of a Buena Park company that specializes in baseball memorabilia shows has been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in Cincinnati that is investigating Reds Manager Pete Rose for possible tax evasion. Randy Thyberg, owner of Thyberg Sports Marketing Co., has been subpoenaed, Kevin Mann, Thyberg Sports' director of promotions, told the Associated Press Wednesday. Mann said Thyberg did not testify Wednesday. A source, who asked not to be identified, said the grand jury is looking into whether Rose reported sales of his sports memorabilia on his tax returns, and whether he correctly reported earnings from gambling.

Former state Sen. Alan Robbins was ordered Friday to serve five years in federal prison and pay $475,000 in fines and restitution--a sentence that climaxes a lengthy corruption probe of the San Fernando Valley Democrat. Robbins, who must report to prison by June 15, was contrite and somber at his sentencing, which followed his guilty plea last December to using his Senate office as a racketeering operation to extort money and to two felony counts of income tax evasion.

Two 1998 deals to unload Times Mirror Co. subsidiaries were done for business reasons, and not to dodge taxes, former company executives Mark H. Willes and Thomas Unterman testified Tuesday. Chicago-based Tribune Co., which bought Times Mirror in 2000, is defending the two deals as reorganizations and fighting an IRS demand for nearly $1 billion in taxes and interest. The IRS claims that the divestiture of the Matthew Bender & Co. and Mosby Inc. publishing units were sales in disguise. In U.S.

The Kabbalah Centre, the Los Angeles-based spiritual organization that mingles ancient Jewish mysticism with the glamour of its celebrity devotees, is the focus of a federal tax evasion investigation probing, among other things, the finances of two charities connected to Madonna, the center's most famous adherent. Sources familiar with the investigation said the criminal division of the IRS is looking into whether nonprofit funds were used for the personal enrichment of the Berg family, which has controlled the Kabbalah Centre for more than four decades, a period in which it expanded from one school of a little-known strain of Judaism to a global brand with A-list followers like Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow and assets that may top $260 million.

A former investment banker at Lazard Freres & Co. pleaded guilty today to felony criminal charges in the Dennis Levine insider trading scheme that could earn him up to 20 years in prison, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Robert Wilkis, 37, who had also been a first vice president at E. F. Hutton & Co., pleaded guilty in U.S.

The owner of a roofing removal company in Ojai was indicted on four counts of tax evasion Friday, authorities said. Assistant U.S. Atty. Ronald Cheng said that for the tax years 1990 through 1993, Gunther Rolf Holler, 63, of Ojai, owner of Valley Construction Services, filed false tax returns. An investigation by the IRS found that despite having gross receipts totaling more than $1.

There are artists who prefer to stay out of the public spotlight and devote themselves solely to their work. And then there is Ai Weiwei. An Internet activist with a history of getting into trouble with Chinese authorities, Ai has been outspoken in support of free speech and human rights. He spent 81 days in jail this spring before being released on bail but still faces charges related to tax evasion - charges supporters regard as an attempt by the government to silence him. The terms of Ai's release forbid him from discussing his legal case.

The Kabbalah Centre, the Los Angeles-based spiritual organization that mingles ancient Jewish mysticism with the glamour of its celebrity devotees, is the focus of a federal tax evasion investigation probing, among other things, the finances of two charities connected to Madonna, the center's most famous adherent. Sources familiar with the investigation said the criminal division of the IRS is looking into whether nonprofit funds were used for the personal enrichment of the Berg family, which has controlled the Kabbalah Centre for more than four decades, a period in which it expanded from one school of a little-known strain of Judaism to a global brand with A-list followers like Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow and assets that may top $260 million.

A Credit Suisse banker, reportedly suspected of fraud related to the bank's offshore accounts, was being moved to Florida for a court appearance after his arrest in New York, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the case. The banker, Christos Bagios, was being transferred to Fort Lauderdale, where several high-profile tax evasion cases have been tried, including those involving the government's tax fraud allegations against UBS. The New York Times reported Monday that Bagios, a Greek citizen, had been charged with conspiracy and fraud in connection with Credit Suisse's work in offshore accounts.

A physician who rocked a UC Irvine fertility clinic 15 years ago, when he and a partner switched the frozen embryos of dozens of unsuspecting women, is being held in Mexico City as U.S. officials race a deadline to extradite him to face criminal charges. Ricardo Asch, one of two fertility doctors who fled prosecution as the scandal in Orange County unfolded, was arrested in Mexico City on Nov. 3, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. He remains in custody as U.S. prosecutors seek to extradite him to Southern California to face federal mail fraud and tax evasion charges.

Russian prosecutors said Friday they would seek a 14-year prison sentence for onetime oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is on trial for embezzlement and money laundering while already in his seventh year of incarceration on a tax evasion conviction, all charges he has vehemently denied. Khodorkovsky, once the head of Yukos Oil and the richest man in Russia, is widely seen as the nation's leading political prisoner and a personal foe of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The current trial is seen by some observers as a referendum on whether Russia has changed since Putin was succeeded as president by Dmitry Medvedev, a lawyer who has complained about judicial corruption and manipulation, which he described as "legal nihilism.

Swiss banker Bradley Birkenfeld would do just about anything for the wealthy Americans who entrusted him with millions of dollars they wanted to hide from the Internal Revenue Service. He'd help them set up phony companies to conceal their deposits. He'd give them credit cards to access their hidden cash. On one occasion, he converted an American client's money into diamonds, then smuggled the gems across the Atlantic Ocean in a toothpaste tube. Those actions, detailed by Birkenfeld in court documents, were part of a coordinated -- and illegal -- effort by his employer at the time, Swiss banking giant UBS, to help wealthy U.S. clients evade taxes.

Two members of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's government quit their jobs Sunday after a succession of scandals over lavish spending. Christian Blanc, secretary of state for the greater Paris area, who ran up a $15,000 Cuban cigar bill charged to taxpayers, and Alain Joyandet, secretary of state for overseas development, who hired a private jet at a cost of $143,000 for an official trip to the Caribbean, submitted their resignations Sunday...

Wesley Snipes is hoping that the arrest of his former financial advisor could help reverse the actor's tax-charge conviction on which he has been sentenced to three years in prison. Kenneth I. Starr, who was arrested Thursday and charged with fraud and money laundering in federal court in New York, was Snipes' financial advisor in the 1990s. Starr, a prosecution witness in Snipes' 2008 tax-evasion trial, testified then that he told the movie star he needed to file tax returns, despite contrary advice the actor obtained from an anti-tax outfit.