Snipes Verdict

[grixit]

Question: at what point can a claim of "reliance on a credentialed attorney" excuse a person from using their own common sense?

Suppose a credentialed attorney tells you that there's no law against burglary. Can you rob people until the sheriff clarifies that law for you? And once being informed that, yes, it is illegal, are you only subject to returning the loot plus some sort of penalty fee?

[Famspear]

grixit wrote:

Question: at what point can a claim of "reliance on a credentialed attorney" excuse a person from using their own common sense?

Suppose a credentialed attorney tells you that there's no law against burglary. Can you rob people until the sheriff clarifies that law for you? And once being informed that, yes, it is illegal, are you only subject to returning the loot plus some sort of penalty fee?

grixit, you hit it on the head.

The problem for Snipes with the jury may be that even after having been told that the tax law is what it really is (rather than what Kahn, etc., allegedly told him the tax law was), even after having been told he was under investigation, Snipes is alleged to have persisted with his tax protester positions. If the adduced evidence did tend to show that Snipes persisted even after having been told he was under investigation, etc. (and I wasn't in the court room, so that's an "if"), this could make it easier for a jury to discredit the theory that Snipes lacked the the mens rea requirement for each count. However, in a world where a Tommy Cryer can be acquitted, I guess almost anything can happen.

[Nikki]

Ray Pope's status to represent clients before the IRS:
Expedited Suspension 2/23/2001 Indefinite

Milton Baxley:
Disbarred 10/24/2003 Indefinite

[Investor]

Damn, I said more than one day (implying less than two days). As 4:00pm has come and gone, I'm guessing I'm out of the running on this one.

[Doktor Avalanche]

I didn't see anyone else arguing that this would be resolved in a few hours - but I would most definitely say that nobody with a clue could reasonably expect this jury to be out a few hours in rendering a guilty verdict in this case. There are too many defendants, too many charges, and too many issues.

Dan did. Right at the top of the thread.

From the outset, I have to offer this into the record before I get down to the business of addressing your rebuttal point by point.

I am not given to hyperbole. Granted, I do make silly comments from time to time (I am the Assistant Secretary to the Department of Jesters, you know) but when it comes to posting matters pertaining to the letter of the law....

This is Quatloos, as you're well aware. On one side I have people like Dan Evans and UGA Lawdog who, in my humble opinion, are two of the finest legal minds I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. On the other side I have J.J. McNabb, one of the finest financial minds whose opinion and expertise I greatly respect and admire - I look up to this woman.

In between we have an assortment of lawyers, tax experts, law enforcement officials and the like. Again, these people are the best at what they do and I consider it an honor to be able to come here and hang out with them.

So, having said all that - whenever I dain to post a matter of law on this board I have to be right. With these fine folks here, you better come correct because if you don't they'll eviscerate you.

This is a fact I am very mindful of everytime I speak up around here.

For example, you heard that Snipes sent bogus checks to the IRS. That is an outright lie.

Actually, it's not. Snipes passed something called a Bill of Exchange which in the opinion of the finest legal minds here on Quatloos is a bogus instrument. Whether it was a BOE, a check or a load of axle grease the intent is the same.

Exactly what did Mr. Snipes think the IRS was going to do with it?

Had you sat in a juror's seat, you would have heard that an attorney with impeccable credentials advised Snipes that all Americans have some sort of secret account that we don't know about . . . and we can use that account to discharge debts. I admit, and we all admit, that this was ludicrous, but accept as fact, for purposes of argument, that bona fide attorneys and CPA's assured him it was true.

You're right, I wasn't there. However, I do have someone who is there now and she's been very diligent about giving us the play-by-play.

I don't accept that any bona fide CPA or attorney would assure him that's true. Again, I'm surrounded by bona fide attorneys and CPAs who assure me it's not.

In fact, if memory serves me correctly, Mr. Snipes dropped those bona fide CPAs and attorneys who told him otherwise.

Forget about checks - there were no checks - instead, Snipes sent letters to the IRS saying that he was getting conflicting advice that he did not understand, explicitly asking for an audit, and asking that any money in any secret account be applied to his tax bill.

That's not quite all he did. In keeping with the time-worn tradition of tax protesting, Mr. Snipes sent a letter railing against the IRS using language that was distincly tax protestor in nature.

This was not a polite request as he even alluded to "personal damage". I, too, have read this letter and it seems to me that this was an invitation to the IRS to come and get him.

Silly? Stupid? Maybe, but how is that more stupid than the American citizen who sends everything he has to some Nigerian who promises him the moon?

Yes it's silly and stupid, but in comparison the citizen who gets fleeced by a Nigerian scammer doesn't send letters to government agencies daring them to prosecute him.

Snipes bought into bullshit (and paid for it) and sent letters - simple, ordinary correspondence - albeit a little nutty.

Again, there was nothing simple or ordinary about this correspondence. Mr. Snipes threw down the gauntlet to the IRS by challenging their authority when he sent that correspondence.

In this correspondence Snipes makes the claim that the IRS is acting illegally (see the part about Refunds). That, along with other passages, is a direct challenge.

Snipes never sent anyone a check - that was something Kahn and his band of merry kooks started doing later. They actually bought check stock and began printing checks - but the evidence is unequivocal that Snipes never had anything to do with that.

Unless I am mistaken, and I freely admit that I could be, Snipes endorsed that BOE.

How do you put a man in prison for that?

The same way you put a man in prison for passing hot checks, boosting cars, murdering their wives, etc.

How do you allege that a victim of a Nigerian scheme is a co-conspirators with the Nigerians?

Because normally the victim of a Nigerian scheme doesn't invite the Nigerians to his house to give seminars to his employees, or threaten to dismiss any of them when one of them pipes up and points out the fraud for what it is.

And they certainly don't make everyone sign non-disclosure agreements in a vain attempt to hide their victimization from the authorities.

Let me ask you another thing. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you sat in a juror's chair and heard that the IRS evidentiary documents as presented to the Grand Jury were, shall we say, "incomplete."

Compared to what, Mr. Branscum?

Suppose you heard IRS agents admit that there were a great many documents that were destroyed - and further suppose that those documents included anything that quoted from any case, or cited ANY STATUTE, or demanded that they be kept in the taxpayers permanent file . . . basically, anything other than the routine goes to the "Funny Box" and on to "Classified Trash" to be sent to the shredder.

Okay, you got me there but the thing is that I'm about as qualified to pontificate on the practices and procedures of the IRS as I am to write The Law of The Sea.

But if it's my opinion you're seeking, I would have to say that I'm going to have to side with the IRS.

Don't presume that this was limited to voluminous nut case tax protester garbage - that isn't what the evidence showed.

That's precisely what it looks like out here in Quatloos, and I'm not alone in that opinion.

Now, suppose, again for the sake of argument, that the evidence showed that Snipes' attorney and his CPA followed the IRS published procedure for asking for a "controversial" refund - the IRS has a special form for that. There was nothing sneaky, they filled out the IRS Form 8275-R that says, "Use this form only to disclose items or positions that are contrary to Treasury regulations."

Suppose that there is an IRS publication that outlines the procedure that the IRS must follow when they get this 8275-R form, and suppose that the IRS didn't follow it, and in fact, refused to follow it, shredding the relevant correspondence.

If that's really the case, the IRS was deficient and borderline negligent but all indications are Mr. Snipes wasn't acting in good faith as he wasn't holding up his end.

Let's just suppose, for the sake of argument, that you as a juror saw the IRS as being the most hi-handed, arrogant, bunch of Nazis that you could imagine.

As you are wont to point out, I wasn't there and from what I've read based on J.J's field notes that wasn't what happened.

If I am a little testy, chalk it up to resentment at the unfairness I see here and lack of sleep. Justice is a sword that cuts both ways and the Prosecutor who got up and asserted that "The IRS is not on trial here," evidently had no clue what was going on.

The IRS is not on trial. Snipes, Kahn and Rosile are. What's wrong with that statement?

Snipes owes the government a lot of money, and he's going to have to pay it but, IMHO, this is a civil case from which the IRS deliberately chose to create a criminal case, in an effort to make an example of a misguided celebrity.

Yes, he's dug quite a hole for himself. However, the government is correct in making this a criminal case as clearly, IMO, a crime of conspiracy and fraud took place.

It's no secret that I have no use for tax scheme promoters, and I fully expect this jury to hang Rosile and Kahn unless they are so fed up with the crap they saw in the courtroom that they refuse to convict anyone.

For what it's worth, Mr. Branscum, I hope the judge and jury does go easy on Mr. Snipes as I would hate to see this beautiful, intelligent and talented man spend a good chunk of his life in the klink.

[LPC]

I'm sorry, but I think it's getting redundant have two Snipes threads, and the original purpose of this one ended when the case went to the jury, so I'm shutting this one down.