The lawyer for Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law was indicted on Wednesday on tax charges.
Stanley L. Cohen, a New York lawyer and political activist who represented Suleiman Abu Ghaith, was indicted for failing to pay more than $3 million in income to the IRS, Reuters reports. Cohen told clients to pay him in cash, which he kept in a safe, rather than a bank account, prosecutors said. “As alleged, Stanley Cohen instructed his clients to pay him in cash, and then stockpiled the money he received in legal fees in order to avoid paying his fair share in taxes,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
Cohen was charged with five counts of failing to file an individual tax return and one count of wire fraud. He faces a possible 20 years in prison.
Cohen, who has represented Abu Ghaith, one of the highest-ranking al Qaeda members to be tried in the U.S., said in an email to Reuters he was “fully confident that I will be vindicated and see today’s ‘new’ counts as a continuation of a DOJ [U.S. Department of Justice] vendetta directed at me for my many years of challenging them at home and abroad.”
[Reuters]