A tax fraud running up to 250 million dollars in a civil tax fraud case involving Felix Sater took place throughout the year of 2017.
As if there wasn’t enough controversy surrounding our newest President of the United States, Donald Trump, a few recent accusations regarding lawyers and a few businessmen show that there might’ve happened a tax fraud with a total amount of 250 million in money-laundry and corruption. Donald Trump is both directly and indirectly involved in the accusations, as we will be discussing down below.
A tax fraud running up to 250 million dollars in a civil tax fraud case involving Felix Sater, a businessman, was dismissed by a Manhattan court, and caused a lot of repercussion around the media. Felix Sater is the co-founder of Bayrock, a real estate company that became very successful during the last couple of years with Felix Sater at the head.
To refresh your mind about these recent events, in 2010, a money-laundering case was brought against Bayrock (co-founded by Tevfik Arif Doyen and Felix Sater) by Jody Kriss, a Bayrock’s former finance director, that the company was allegedly involved in a number of misconducts. It also accused Tevfik Arif of cheating him out of millions of dollars among other wrongdoings, but then a New York judge stopped the lawsuit from moving forward as a racketeering case. That event where the lawsuit didn’t see any continuation would mean that the mischievous events would end up unpunished.
However, Fred Oberlander, a lawyer who represented Jody Kriss in that money-laundering case against Bayrock accepted that he filed a qui tam complaint that was made on information from the former case by Jody Kriss that were stricken off by federal judges from Jody Kriss’ original complaint.
Robert Wolf, Sater’s lawyer, confirmed after the sitting in court that the case was dismissed on merits rather than procedural grounds. He stated that Oberlander and Richard Lerner, another lawyer involved in the case, have been sent to DOJ twice for criminal contempt as pertaining to their conduct in the case against Sater. They gave a few statements on the subject that revealed their opinions on the case and what they thought about the decision of the New York judge to prevent the continuation of the lawsuit.
The Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, refused to intervene in the case the previous year. Also Schneiderman, in February 2016, notified the Supreme Court of the NY that Oberlander had released a press release that claimed he, Schneiderman, intervened in the case, however, what actually happened was that it was the State that had previously expressively declided it, said Schneiderman in defense. It was very obvious that the decline took place and that there was a lot of hidden information.
Regarding Sater’s association with Trump, Bayrock’s office used to be about two floors right below Trump Tower on the Fifth Avenue. An anonymous person previously told Business Insider that Trump and Sater had standing meetings every week, and that they would regularly see each other to discuss and have business meetings. Sater has also stated before that he met with Trump with frequency and many allegations support that.
although there are many controversies regarding the U.S. President, these allegations only show that the two met with regularity below the Trump Tower, on the Fifth Avenue.
Since Sater’s lawyer, Mr. Wolf, said himself that the case was dismissed with merit, it turned out that, Richard Lerner, having been referred by the DOJ twice already, it is pretty clear where the situation is headed regarding the allegations of the tax fraud.
Now, it is only a matter of waiting to see what the resolution will be in 2018, as there are a few factors that haven’t seen the light of day yet.