Stanford Law Grad Avoids Prison in Escort Service Tax Evasion Case

A Stanford Law School graduate who reportedly pursued a lucrative nonlegal (and illegal) career to help cover the cost of her student loans has avoided prison but will serve a year of home detention for tax evasion under a plea agreement.

The agreement, which was filed yesterday in federal court in San Jose, Calif., also calls for Cristina Warthen, 35, to pay the government $313,000 and serve three years of probation, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

She faced a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $100,000 fine, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. However, the $313,133.74 she agreed to pay to the U.S. Treasury amounted to the total she earned from the escort service. The federal income tax she owed totaled $24,424.

As detailed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, the case concerns unpaid taxes on Warthen's cash earnings running an escort service while working as a prostitute under the name "Brazil."

She was not charged with prostitution; "this is a case where she had illegal income and she didn't report it," Special Agent Arlette Lee of the Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation division tells the Chronicle. "If she reported it properly, she probably wouldn't have been looking at a tax charge."