Rightardia comment: You can bet that some high level politics were involved in this case. Only 10 per cent of the UBS tax evaders were identified and UBS can still operate in the US. Bradley Birkenfeld will probably spend 40 months in one of those boy scout camps for 'non violent offenders' even though he did a tremendous amount of damage to the US economy.
Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Former UBS AG banker Bradley Birkenfeld was sentenced to 40 months in prison for helping wealthy Americans evade taxes. Birkenfeld, 44, played a key role in showing prosecutors and U.S. Senate investigators how Zurich-based UBS helped Americans hide as much as $20 billion in assets.
“I’d like to express my regret for my actions,” Birkenfeld, who pleaded guilty last year, told U.S. District Judge William Zloch today in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The sentence was 10 months longer than prosecutors requested in court papers citing his “substantial assistance” in the investigation of UBS. Birkenfeld argued in a filing that he deserved probation, not prison. The judge didn’t explain his reasons for the sentence.
UBS agreed on Aug. 19 to hand over account information on 4,450 [of 52,000] accounts to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The bank on Feb. 18 said it would pay $780 million to avoid prosecution.
Birkenfeld and Liechtenstein investment adviser Mario Staggl were charged in April 2008 with helping California billionaire Igor Olenicoff and others evade taxes. Staggl is a fugitive.
February Settlement
UBS’s February settlement and prosecutors’ efforts to wrest the names of secret Swiss bank account holders from it wouldn’t have occurred without Birkenfeld’s cooperation, he said in an Aug. 18 request for leniency.
Since the bank’s settlement, four UBS clients have agreed to plead guilty to failing to report offshore accounts. Former UBS banker Raoul Weil is also a fugitive, and an ex-UBS manager and a Swiss lawyer were indicted in Fort Lauderdale yesterday on charges related to the investigation.
UBS bankers lured U.S. clients with sponsorships of art fairs and tennis tournaments, Birkenfeld said in court papers accompanying his plea. The bank trained employees to avoid detection in the U.S. when visiting clients, and Birkenfeld once smuggled diamonds for a client.
His leniency request included letters of support from U.S. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, representatives of the Securities and Exchange Commission and IRS, and Rosie Casals, a former professional tennis player.
The case is U.S. v. Birkenfeld, 08-cr-60099, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida (Fort Lauderdale).
Read the complete story at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aeO4povpQVP8
To contact the reporters on this story: Erik Larson in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at elarson4@bloomberg.net; Carlyn Kolker in New York at ckolker@bloomberg.net.
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