Friday, August 20, 2004

Tax charges have surfaced in the seedy mess involving N.J. Gov. McGreevey: millionaire developer Charles Kushner, Gov. McGreevey’s top campaign donor, pleaded guilty to 18 federal criminal charges, admitting he hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law and mailed a video of the encounter to his sister to convince them not to assist an ongoing federal probe of his activities. Now for the really bad stuff: Kushner admitted he defrauded the IRS by claiming more than $1 million in charitable donations and three private school tuition payments as business expenses:

For the 16 tax fraud counts, Kushner admitted engaging in two separate schemes: recording over $1 million in charitable contributions as business expenses from four partnerships and diverting nearly $14,000 in company funds for private school tuition and writing the costs off as business expenses.

Of course, Kushner’s lawyer says “on balance, Mr. Kushner is an extraordinary man, an extraordinary human being….Even a good person can do something wrong. And in this case, what you have is a good man who has done something wrong.” For more details, see here. (Thanks to Ann Murphy (Gonzaga) for the tip.)