Ex-Billionaire on Tax Shelters: I Trusted My Lawyers. Judge: Not Good Enough
- Wyly lost a related SEC fraud lawsuit in Manhattan in 2014
- Dallas bankruptcy judge says Wyly can’t ‘hide behind others’
Sam Wyly arrives at U.S. District Court in Manhattan in May 2014.
Photographer: Kathy Willens/AP PhotoThis article is for subscribers only.
Former billionaire Sam Wyly may have been hoping for a better outcome on his home turf as a Texas judge weighed tax-evasion claims related to the fraud trial he lost in New York two years ago. He didn’t get it.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Barbara Houser in Dallas roundly rejected the 81-year-old entrepreneur’s argument that he was simply following orders from his own employees when set up a web of offshore funds that hid his assets, allowing him to make hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal profits.