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Non-Tech : Auric Goldfinger's Short List -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SEC-ond-chance who wrote (17480)	4/18/2006 8:13:32 PM
From: StockDung	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19428

"If convicted on all charges, Currin faces up to 60 years in prison, prosecutors said. Howell faces a maximum of 65 years, Vernice Woltz 55 years, and Graves eight years. " Former U.S. attorney in N.C. indicted in tax fraud case 04/18/2006 By EMERY P. DALESIO / Associated Press A former U.S. attorney who later headed the North Carolina Republican Party and was a Superior Court judge has been indicted in a tax fraud conspiracy, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. Sam Currin, now a private criminal attorney, was one of four people charged after a sting by investigators with the Internal Revenue Service. The four were involved with abusing financial trusts created under Caribbean companies to avoid U.S. taxes, said U.S. Attorney Gretchen Shappert in Charlotte. Charged along with Currin were Ricky Graves, a tax attorney in Wilmington, and a North Carolina couple who headed a series of offshore financial companies, federal officials said Tuesday. Currin, Graves, Howell Way Woltz, the president of Sterling Trust in the Bahamas, and his wife, Vernice, a director of Sterling Trust, were arrested Tuesday, prosecutors said. Currin's attorney did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Graves did not return a call to his office. Prosecutors said they have asked a judge to order that the Woltzes be held without bail. There was no telephone number listed for the couple at the address in Advance listed in the federal indictment. Currin, Graves, and Howell Woltz were charged with tax fraud conspiracy for devising foreign financial arrangements, including preparing "false and fraudulent documents to deceive the IRS ... so that wealthy United States citizens could evade federal income taxation." Currin also is charged with participating in a coverup of the financial structures mapped out through Woltz's financial services company, prosecutors said. He was charged with obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and perjury charges in a related grand jury investigation of securities fraud. Prosecutors said Currin not only gave false testimony, he persuaded Raleigh attorney Robert Wellons to "make false and misleading statements to and withhold documents from the grand jury." Wellons, 37, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice and has agreed to help the government, prosecutors said. His attorney did not return a call seeking comment. He faces up to five years imprisonment, prosecutors said. Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that a federal grand jury in Charlotte indicted Currin and the others earlier this month. Currin was formerly an aide to Sen. Jesse Helms; the United States attorney for eastern North Carolina from 1981 to 1987; and a Superior Court judge until 1990. Since then, he's represented criminal defendants in the state's federal courts. "Sometimes persons involved in elaborate criminal financial schemes believe that they can avoid federal law enforcement by moving their operations offshore," Shappert said. "This is not true." If convicted on all charges, Currin faces up to 60 years in prison, prosecutors said. Howell faces a maximum of 65 years, Vernice Woltz 55 years, and Graves eight years. The former president of Gastonia commodities trading firm Tech Traders Incorporated, Coyt Murray, 73, of Tega Cay, S.C., was charged with conspiracy to commit commodities fraud in connection with a related case involving another company the Woltzes controlled, officials said. Prosecutors said he has agreed to plead guilty under a plea agreement that requires him to help investigators. His attorney did not return a call seeking comment. Tech Traders attracted more than $47 million from investors Murray solicited with fraudulent statements about the company's performance. Murray faces a maximum of five years in prison if convicted.