Ex-UBS Client Robbins Gets Year of Probation for Filing False Tax Returns
Jules Robbins, a former UBS AG client who pleaded guilty to five counts of filing false tax returns, was sentenced to one year of probation.
Robbins, an 84-year-old retired watch distributor from Jericho, New York, admitted in April that he failed to disclose almost $42 million held in an offshore UBS account.
“I want to convey to you my most sincere apology for not filing accurate federal tax returns,” Robbins said to U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell at a hearing today in Manhattan. “I should have disclosed my UBS account in those federal tax returns.”
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Robbins agreed to pay a $20.8 million civil penalty for failing to file foreign bank account report forms. The amount is 80 percent of Robbins’s net worth, his lawyer, Martin Perschetz, told Holwell. Holwell imposed an additional $2,000 criminal fine.
Perschetz, who said that Robbins is in fragile health and has already suffered punishment for the crime, asked Holwell for a sentence that didn’t include prison. Robbins asked the judge for mercy, breaking down several times as he told Holwell of the “shame, aggravation and sleepless nights during the past many months.”
UBS, based in Zurich, avoided U.S. prosecution in 2009 by paying $780 million, turning over the names of U.S. account holders and admitting it helped Americans hide assets from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
The case is U.S. v. Robbins, 10-CR-333, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in U.S. District Court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net
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