Tax Fraud

In a big case largely gone bust, a jury has convicted three men who used tax shelters marketed by accounting giant KPMG to help rich people escape more than $1 billion in taxes, but it exonerated a fourth man who had been jailed for five months. The only trial in what the government once touted as its biggest tax fraud case ever ended Wednesday with U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in Manhattan telling David Greenberg that his exoneration proved he had suffered an unfortunate injustice.

Police have arrested a Texas man suspected in identity thefts involving more than 160 UC Irvine graduate and medical students, authorities said. Michael Tyrone Thomas, 27, of Fort Worth, was an employee in the Student Resources Department of United Healthcare in Dallas, authorities said. The company manages the university's graduate student health insurance program. The 163 identity theft reports involved students in the 2006-07 school year, said UCI Police Chief Paul Henisey.

After more than a decade in a Shanghai prison, a Chinese-American entrepreneur whose case illustrated the perils of doing business in China and the nation's tenuous rule of law was released Wednesday on parole. Jude Shao, 45, had about five years left on a 16-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud -- allegations that his supporters say were false.

Longtime Los Angeles art dealer G. Ray Hawkins, known for a pioneering photography gallery that represented the first of its kind in Los Angeles, has been sentenced to federal prison for tax crimes. Hawkins, of Beverly Hills, was sentenced late last month by United States District Judge Dean D. Pregerson to spend 12 months and one day in prison for participating in a conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. The art dealer was ordered to serve 36 months on supervised release upon completing his prison sentence and was ordered to pay $35,042 in restitution to the IRS. -- Diane Haithman

A federal jury in Florida acquitted actor Wesley Snipes of felony charges of tax fraud and conspiracy Friday but found the former high-profile star guilty on three misdemeanor charges of failing to file a tax return. Snipes, who starred in such box-office hits as "White Men Can't Jump," "New Jack City" and the "Blade" trilogy, could serve up to three years in prison. He faced up to 16 years in prison if convicted on all counts, which included six counts of failing to file a tax return.

Three men who led a now- defunct Islamic charity were convicted on federal tax and fraud charges in Boston for using tax exemptions to hide support for religious militants and alleged terrorists overseas. The group, Care International Inc., described itself as a charity for Muslim refugees, widows and orphans. Prosecutors said the organization distributed a newsletter in favor of jihadist causes and lent support to Islamic militants since its formation in 1993.

The leader of an Orthodox Jewish sect was arrested Wednesday after authorities unsealed a sweeping 37-count indictment alleging that he operated a decade-long tax fraud and money laundering scheme stretching from Israel through New York to downtown Los Angeles' jewelry district, authorities said. Grand Rabbi Naftali Tzi Weisz, head of the Spinka religious group, and his executive assistant, Gabbai Moseh E.

Christopher Kelly, a close advisor to Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich and chief fundraiser on his two campaigns for governor, was indicted Thursday on federal tax fraud charges, accused of understating more than $1.3 million in personal and business income on tax returns for five years, federal authorities said. The indictment charged that Kelly concealed his use of corporate funds to pay for personal expenses such as gambling debts to sports bookmakers.

A billionaire accused of stashing a fortune in foreign bank accounts pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return and has paid more than $52 million in back taxes, penalties and interest, the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday. Igor Olenicoff entered the plea Wednesday in federal court, according to the IRS. He could face as many as three years in prison but is likely to serve less than six months when he is sentenced in April, said his attorney, Edward M. Robbins Jr.

Gene Francis Haas, the owner of Oxnard-based machine tool maker Haas Automation Inc., was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for defrauding the federal govern- ment of $34 million in income taxes. Haas, 54, pleaded guilty in August to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. He has paid back taxes, penalties and interest of $70 million, more than twice the amount he failed to pay, to resolve the government's tax claims, U.S. Atty. Thomas O'Brien said in a statement.