Financial Guru Sentenced for Tax Fraud

Bestselling financial writer Wade Cook was slapped with an 88-month jail term for defrauding the Internal Revenue Service.

Cook was also ordered to pay $3.75 million in back taxes on the approximately $9.5 million he earned on sales of books like Wall Street Money Machine, and the tapes and seminars he promoted. He was convicted in February of tax evasion, obstruction of justice and filing a false tax return.

His wife, Laura Cook, received a year-and-a-half jail term for helping him falsify documents. She pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in May.

The government said the pair deceptively used a series of interrelated trusts and limited partnerships to hide their sales proceeds. The two claimed they had merely borrowed money from a trust they had set up to benefit the Mormon Church, but were not able to repay the loan after losing money in the stock market. Cook closed down his business, Wade Cook Financial Corp., in February 2003 after it went bankrupt.

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