Manhattan art consultant pleads guilty to stashing cash abroad

Another client of Swiss financial adviser Beda Singenberger, whose accidental mailing of a list of his American clients helped federal prosecutors build dozens of tax-evasion cases, has been nabbed by the government.

Lacy Doyle, a former art consultant with the Museum of Modern Art in the 1980s, pleaded guilty Thursday to one of three felony charges she faced. She was accused of failing to disclose that she had hidden $3.7 million of her late father’s estate in an undeclared bank account with Credit Suisse AG in Switzerland. Doyle was arrested and charged in July 2016.

After her father died in 2003, Doyle was appointed executor of his estate, according to the U.S. Advised by Singenberger, she then falsely claimed her father’s estate was under $1 million and instead held her secret inheritance in a Credit Suisse account under her own name, according to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman.

In 2006, Doyle opened an undeclared bank account in the name of a sham foundation “Gestino Stiftung,” allegedly formed under Lichtenstein laws and transferred her funds to it. By May 2015, the account held assets of more than $5 million, according to the U.S. The sham foundation was moved from Lichtenstein to Panama in 2010, prosecutors said.

Singenberger was indicted by the U.S. in 2011 for conspiring with U.S. taxpayers to evade U.S. income taxes. While he remains at large, federal prosecutors in Manhattan in 2013 said his errant mailing — that included clients’ names, residences, their Swiss banks and the ways they hid accounts from the IRS — was intercepted and led to scores of federal charges.

Doyle agreed to pay restitution for the unpaid U.S. income taxes of at least $10,254. She faces a stipulated sentencing range of six to 12 months in prison and a fine of up to $20,000, according to her plea agreement. Doyle’s trial was scheduled to begin in July.

Her lawyer Fred Hafetz didn’t immediately return a voicemail seeking comment.

The case is U.S. v. Doyle, 16-cr-00506, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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Bloomberg News
Tax evasion Tax crimes Credit Suisse
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