Ex-Brown & Wood Partner Gets 6 Yrs in Tax Scheme
Former Brown & Wood partner Raymond Ruble was sentenced to six years and six months in prison for his role in a fraudulent tax shelter scheme that also saw the conviction of two former KPMG employees.
Ruble was accused of writing opinion letters supporting fraudulent tax shelters. The letters assured clients that the tax shelters would survive any IRS challenge.
Ruble, along with former KPMG tax partner Robert Pfaff and former senior tax manager John Larson, were convicted in December of evading taxes via a BLIPS tax shelter, Reuters reports.
Calling their activity “extremely offensive,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of Manhattan sentenced Pfaff to more than eight years with a $3 million fine and Larson to more than 10 years with a $6 million fine.
Estimated losses in the scheme topped $100 million.
Ruble was granted bail pending appeal. The other two were remanded to custody.
Reuters notes that KPMG, which agreed in 2005 to pay $456 million to settle the federal probe, wasn’t a defendant in the case. And the case was once much larger, involving more than a dozen others. But Judge Kaplan dismissed cases against 13 other KPMG executives, finding that prosecutors interfered with their right to counsel.
