Legal Ethics
Lawyer Charged with Selling Abusive Tax Shelters to Jenkens Clients
Posted Nov 17, 2008, 11:52 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A lawyer who was an executive at Bank One has been charged with selling abusive tax shelters to clients of his employer and the now-defunct law firm Jenkens & Gilchrist.
The indictment unsealed on Friday claims lawyer John B. Ohle III sold an abusive tax shelter known as “Homer,” named after the cartoon character Homer Simpson, the New York Times reports. The sales of 36 shelters created $430 million in fraudulent losses, costing the government $103 million in uncollected taxes, according to a press release. Manhattan prosecutors claim Deutsche Bank arranged the financial transactions, the story says.
Jenkens & Gilchrist earned $12.1 million in fees from the transactions, the indictment says, while Bank One earned $5.2 million. Bank One has since been acquired by JPMorgan Chase.
A lawyer for Ohle, David Spears, told the Times his client “did not commit any crime, and we intend to defend the case vigorously at trial.”
Jenkens & Gilchrist shut down last year after it admitted in a nonprosecution agreement with federal prosecutors that it marketed fraudulent tax shelters at its Chicago office. The firm also reached a civil settlement with the Internal Revenue Service.
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