First to jail — then to the kitchen

Hide money in Swiss bank accounts (to avoid paying IRS).
Open restaurants in Las Vegas, New York and Washington.
And do these before you reach 30.

What the New York restaurateur didn’t plan for was jail time.

He is one of the Americans who faced prosecution for hiding money in Swiss bank accounts.

The smarter ones took advantage of the amnesty program
In late 2000’s the IRS offered amnesty to those hiding money outside of U.S.
And over 50,000 Americans have avoided prosecution — they have volunteered information on their offshore bank accounts; and paid more than $8 billion (taxes, penalties, and interest).

Back to our New York restaurateur
IRS, once they untangled the web he built, handed him a jail sentence and 300 hours of “kitchen time”.
(Community service — cooking in underprivileged neighborhoods.)
The judge also ordered him to pay a $15,000 fine.
All in all not too harsh of a sentence.

Why the judge was more lenient with him
He was fresh out of school, only 23 years old when he set up the Swiss bank account.
Evidence showed that his mom and her attorney played an important role in the whole set up.
And the judge showed him more leniency based on those facts.

What next?
For now the New Yorker will head off to jail.
Then, once out, he’ll get busy in the kitchen — doing his 300 hours of community service.

What’s next?
There is more to his story:

Being involved in a multi million-dollar lawsuit with a celebrity chef.
Getting punched for flirting with someone’s fiancé.
And more.

Maybe Hollywood should be the next stop on his life journey.
After all, this is the stuff movies are made of!

Mariana Fieraru

Mariana Fieraru, an Eastern European transplant, fell in love with her new home shortly after landing in New York. She "discovered" pizza! Years later she still loves pizza. And so do her two feathered-kids, Sunny and Flipper

Mariana worked on both, the east and the west coast.
Big or small, each project she worked on helped define the importance of gaining and sustaining a competitive edge in an increasingly complex business environment.

Business know-how, love of teaching and writing – all combined in 2006 to form OBI.
Its mission: to make learning fun! And easy.

Through its training, consulting, and publications OBI builds bridges of knowledge to take you from where you are to
where you want to go. Using a mix of serious, informal, analytical, and optimistic approach, OBI truly makes learning fun.

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