On Wednesday, March 28, 2018, it was announced that two men from Long Island had pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns related to the failure to disclose overseas bank accounts. As a part of the guilty plea, each defendant agreed to pay $7,730,000 in civil penalties. The guilty pleas were entered before U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis. The charging documents show that between 2009 and 2011, the defendants maintained undeclared bank accounts at an Israeli private bank, which was headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The bank provided private bank services to and maintained undeclared accounts for United States taxpayers. The defendants failed to report these accounts and the interest income from these accounts in their tax filings. 70-year-old Parviz Hakimian and 64-year-old Khosrow Hakimian are scheduled to be sentenced at a later date. At the time of sentencing, each defendant will face a maximum of three years in prison. Further details have been made available here.