Page 4 - Robert Fink Interview

QWhen and why did you decide to speak in the manner in which the manager. Mickey was innocent! I con-
pursue a career as a trial lawyer in federal and state tax matters? And, as part of your response, what was your priority, to be a trial lawyer or to be a tax lawyer who specialized in crimi- nal and civil tax litigation?
AI had no idea Kostelanetz & Ritholz was a tax firm and I had no inter- est in practicing in the area of tax law. After working for several months, Jules Ritholz approached me and suggest- ed that I take an LL.M. in taxation at NYU. I asked him “why would I want to do that” and he said, “to keep your job, this is a tax firm.” That’s when I learned that most of their “trials and appeals” were in tax. I obtained the LL.M. and have been teaching taxes at NYU Law School for the past 25 years.
Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigative Division, works on a case? Are more cases being developed directly though the U.S. Attorney’s offices throughout major metropoli- tan areas?
AYes. More criminal cases involve the Department of Justice. Special Agents appear to be working less on their own and more for Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSAs); and AUSAs, as a generalization, are young, aggressive, and want to win their cases at almost any cost. Years ago, if you had a client who had, for example, stage 3 cancer, the special agent would drop the case and have it handled civilly. Today, the prosecutor will have the client arrest- ed at his chemo session.
vinced the prosecutor of that. I remem- ber Mickey would come to my office with boxes of baseballs which he signed for our secretaries. Unfortunately, I nev- er took one. He would hang around the office sitting on secretaries’ desks re- galing them with stories about his younger days at bars with Billy Martin.
QYour firm is well-known through- out the country and beyond. Please tell us how the firm has contin- ued to grow, and what do you see as its mission in the areas of criminal tax defense and tax litigation?
ABecause of the specialized nature of our work, the firm naturally grew slowly. We never wanted to be an all-purpose firm. Our mission always has been to stand up for our clients against a government which appears to be continually overreaching in the area of tax enforcement.
QOver your years of practice, have you noticed an evolution so to
QIt is generally known that you rep- resented the baseball legend Mick- ey Mantle who was alleged to have evaded tax by pocketing and failing to report autograph money. What anec- dotes or other observations can you make about this representation? Were you already a Yankee fan when Mick- ey sought your counsel?
AMickey Mantle—that investigation was part of a large program that investigated professional baseball play- ers. I always had been a diehard Dodger fan and it upset me when a fellow attor- ney pled Duke Snider guilty to tax eva- sion. I thought that if you selected 12 fellows my age and put them in a jury box, they wouldn’t even have to leave the jury box to acquit. Mickey had a man- ager who received all of his money and Mickey lived on an allowance that was given to him by his manager. If there was wrongdoing, it was done by the
$2.5 billion in taxes. Please explain to our readers the constitutional issues involved in the case including the “inter- twining” of the Sixth and Fifth Amend- ment rights to counsel. Why did Judge Kaplan dismiss the charges against Smith and 13 former KPMG employees? Could the Second Circuit have instead simply allowed KPMG to fund the legal fees of Smith and other KPMG defendants and sent the case back to the trial court? Finally why were the indictments against a former law partner at Sidley Austin LLP, R.J. Ruble, and three former KPMB partners allowed to continue?
AAt the outset of the investigation, KPMG was reimbursing its employ- ees for the legal fees they incurred dur- ing the defense of their case. KPMG itself was a potential defendant and the prosecutor let it be known to KPMG, that if it continued to pay our fees, the prosecution would consider that a neg-
Q
You were part of the all-star team of
legal counsel selected to represent, amongst others, Richard Smith, former head of Tax Services of KPMG (one of 18 named de-fendants) in a criminal tax prosecution filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Smith was alleged, with the help of his “team,” to have created fraudulent tax shelters, which the government claimed facilitated high net worth clients to evade
THE SENTENCING GOTTEN HARSHER
ROBERT S. FINK is one of the nation’s most successful trial lawyers, with a remarkable record of obtaining acquittals in the areas of criminal tax and white collar crimes. JERALD DAVID AUGUST is a partner at Koste- lanetz & Fink, LLP, and is the editor-in-chief of BUSI- NESS ENTITIES.
INTERVIEW
32 BUSINESS ENTITIES
November/December 2015