Yacht broker Robert Moran has been sentenced to two months in prison on tax fraud charges, making him the third former UBS client to be sentenced to prison in South Florida in the past two weeks.
Moran, 58, had been facing a sentence of up to three years in jail, but he had cooperated with prosecutors and asked for probation. A year of probation will follow his two-month jail term. He pleaded guilty in April to filing a false tax return. Born in Leicester, England, Moran became a U.S. citizen in 1994, according to Reuters.
In August, UBS agreed to turn over the names of 4,450 account holders as part of a deal between the U.S. and Swiss governments. Morans name was among the approximately 250 account holders divulged under an agreement in February.
U.S. District Judge James Cohn noted that Moran had paid nearly $1.9 million in financial penalties to the U.S. government, including a fine that equaled half the highest total of his Swiss accounts. Moran apologized to the court during his sentencing.
Late last month, toy salesman Jeffrey Chernick received a three-month sentence from Judge Cohn in Fort Lauderdale after he admitted to hiding $8 million in his UBS accounts. He had faced up to two years in prison, but prosecutors said he had cooperated with prosecutors and helped them build cases against UBS bankers and other clients.
Another UBS client, Steven Michael Rubinstein, was sentenced to a year of house arrest and probation earlier that same week. He too received credit for assisting prosecutors.
