An 82-year-old disbarred New York maritime lawyer was sentenced to 45 days in prison on Friday after he admitted to hiding more than $26.4 million at Swiss bank UBS AG to avoid paying taxes. The former lawyer, Kenneth Heller, banked the money with UBS and then moved it to a smaller private Swiss bank, Wegelin & Co, in June 2008 after reading that UBS might disclose account holders, federal prosecutors said.
He agreed upon pleading guilty in June to pay a $9.8 million fine. The indictment against Heller said he opened a UBS account in the name of a sham offshore company in December 2005. The next month, he wired $26.4 million from the United States to the account and his name did not appear as the account holder on UBS documents.
In February 2009, UBS entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the United States, admitting it helped taxpayers hide accounts from the Internal Revenue Service. Heller was sentenced by US District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan. The case is USA v Heller, US District Court for the Southern District of New York, No 10-00388.
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