Ex-Greenberg Partner Pleads Guilty to Tax Conspiracy
The former chairman of Greenberg Traurig’s tax practice has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit tax evasion and a corrupt attempt to impede tax laws.
Jay Ira Gordon admitted that he wrote false opinion letters opining that tax shelters were legal, the New York Law Journal reports. He also admitted failing to disclose referral fees for referring clients to the shelters.
Gordon resigned from the bar two years ago amid allegations he received more than $1.2 million in kickbacks for the referrals, the story says. Prosecutors claimed he failed to report more than $649,000 in referral fees, Dow Jones Newswires reports. The firm asked him to leave more than four years ago and he resigned from the bar two years later.
Under a plea agreement, Gordon will cooperate in the prosecution of Chicago tax specialist John Ohle III, accused of conspiring with lawyers at Jenkens & Gilchrist to sell abusive tax shelters to clients of his former employer, Bank One, the New York Law Journal story says.
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.
