Word: osserman
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...alleged leaders of the group are George Osserman and Paul Garfinkle, a pair of freewheeling tax attorneys, along with Irwin Meyer and Stephen Friedman, two producers of the hit Broadway musical Annie. According to federal investigators, the four built a tax-shelter empire selling interests not only in American coal but also in distribution rights to European films and a Namibian diamond mine. They funneled investment money through a string of paper corporations with headquarters in the U.S., and such offshore havens as the Cayman Islands and Curaçao. Although the current charges concern only the coal caper, which...
Federal investigators are still trying to determine how much was raised by other Osserman ventures, like the diamond mine in Namibia. A geologist sent to Africa by the IRS learned that in two years of operation the mine had produced five diamonds the size of pinheads. Total market value: less than...
Operating out of a small, unpretentious office in Newton, Mass., during the early '70s, Osserman and Garfinkle became titans in the tax-shelter business. Osserman, described by associates as the "brains" of the operation, was known to promise new clients that they would never have to pay another dime in taxes. In 1975 the two lawyers joined forces with Producers Meyer and Friedman, whose show-biz connections helped catch the stars as investors. A year later, the group leased 22,000 acres in Wyoming, ostensibly to develop coal deposits. The investors signed notes specifying that for every dollar they...
Federal prosecutors charge that the mine shares were sold after that deadline, and that Osserman and others backdated all the documents so the tax deductions would appear to be valid...
...told, the Osserman group raked in $20 million in coal investments, only $300,000 of which went to pay for leasing the lands. The rest was dissipated through a network of corporations; part went for commissions to tax-shelter salesmen and payoffs to business associates, part into other deals, and part was used to purchase such assets as a business jet, a Ferrari and several Rolls-Royces. Investigators believe that a sizable chunk of the money may remain salted away in Swiss bank accounts. Further indictments might be handed down against some investors, who knew that the transactions were...