Panama Papers guilty pleas while local lawyer roqms free

Alexander von der Goltz, 52, the son of a former client of the defunct Mossack Fonseca firm, has pleaded guilty to tax evasion, fraud and falsification of documents, in a court in the Southern District of New York while  a Panama lawyer alleged to have created  the tax evasion structure leading to the Panama Papers scandal roams free

On March 4, Von der Goltz reached an agreement validated by Judge Richard Berman, who sentenced him to a payment of $230,365 in favor IRS) and three years of probation. The payment has already been made through a cashier’s check, according to the electronic records of the Court.

Florida resident Joachim Alexander is the son of 83-year-old Harald Joachim von der Goltz, who on September 22, 2020 was sentenced to four years in prison and an additional three years on supervised release, by Judge Berman.  It was also ordered the confiscation of $5.3 million, and that the convicted person restore $3.4 million and pay a fine of $30.000.

The Von der Goltzes, along with Richard Dick Gaffey, a 76-year-old accountant from Massachusetts, constitute the first criminal convictions derived so far by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) publications of Mossack Fonseca’s activities in 2016.

On September 24, 2020 (two days after Harald Joachim), Judge Berman sentenced Gaffey to 39 months in prison for tax evasion, money laundering, and wire fraud, and two years of probation. The judge also ordered the confiscation of $5.4 million, the payment of a compensation of $3.4 million and a fine of $25, 000

Harald Joachim von der Goltz and Dirk Gaffey were indicted in late 2018, along with Dirk Brauer and Panamanian lawyer Ramsés Owens, who previously worked at Mossack Fonseca.

Brauer and Owens have not appeared in person in US courts and are held responsible for creating and managing structures used by US taxpayers to avoid paying taxes.