Wednesday, January 06, 2010

UBS Informant Files Complaint With DOJ

According to ABC News.com, the key whistleblower in the UBS tax evasion case - Bradley Birkenfeld – filed a complaint on Tuesday that prosecutors made false statements to the judge who sentenced him to prison.

Attorneys for informant Bradley Birkenfeld asked for an in internal Justice Department investigation and said the "inaccurate, misleading and incomplete" allegations should be corrected. The complaint was filed with the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates ethical matters involving prosecutors and other employees.

"These statements had a material impact on Mr. Birkenfeld, and caused the Department of Justice to improperly seek jail time for one of the most important tax whistleblowers in American history," wrote Birkenfeld attorneys Stephen Kohn and Dean Zerbe in the complaint.

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller declined comment.

Birkenfeld, 44, is scheduled to begin serving a prison term Friday of more than three years. He and his attorneys — affiliated with the National Whistleblowers Center — have embarked on a campaign to reduce or eliminate the sentence based on his disclosures, which led UBS last year to pay a $780 million fine and agree to reveal names of thousands of suspected American tax cheaters.