(Reuters) – A Houston-based tax lawyer who was indicted on rates that he helped hide $225 million from the U.S. Inside Profits Assistance has died just before his trial was established to begin Monday, according to the judge presiding around his circumstance.

“The courtroom is recommended that defendant Kepke has passed away,” U.S. District Choose James Donato in San Francisco explained in a Monday buy canceling the demo.

Carlos Kepke, who was 83, was billed with assisting Robert Smith, the billionaire founder of non-public equity Vista Fairness Associates LLC, conceal $225 million from the IRS.

Richard Strassberg, a Goodwin Procter spouse representing Kepke, could not straight away be achieved. Kepke’s attorneys claimed in court docket papers very last month that Kepke had really serious heart illness and had suffered two heart assaults, together with one in 2019 that led to triple-bypass open up-coronary heart surgery and troubles.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Workplace in San Francisco did not offer any supplemental particulars about Kepke’s death.

Smith was slated to testify at the demo that Kepke assisted him cover millions of pounds using a series of offshore entities and international bank accounts. Prosecutors charged Kepke with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and assisting file a materially wrong tax money.

Kepke pleaded not guilty to the rates. Smith signed a non-prosecution settlement with the U.S. Justice Division, admitting to using part in the tax evasion plan and agreeing to pay back $139 million in taxes and penalties.

Kepke is at minimum the second defendant to die although preventing expenses in a felony case related to Smith. In August, 81-calendar year-aged Houston technological innovation executive Robert Brockman died although awaiting demo in what prosecutors identified as the major tax evasion situation in U.S. historical past.

Prosecutors stated Brockman, the main government of Ohio-dependent Reynolds and Reynolds Co, hid $2 billion in earnings from the IRS about two many years, working with a internet of offshore companies in Bermuda and St. Kitts and Nevis.

Smith’s cooperation aided lead to the prices from Brockman, prosecutors said. The two adult men had a company marriage relationship back again to 1997.

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Houston tech mogul Robert Brockman charged in file U.S. tax evasion plan

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