Thursday, September 15, 2011

In Re Grand Jury Investigation (9th Cir. - August 19, 2011)

I'm trying to figure out who the mysterious "M.H." is in this opinion.  S/he lives in San Diego.  S/he's rich.  S/he almost certainly has (or at least had) Swiss bank accounts, and similarly almost certainly was illegally evading taxes with the help of UBS.  S/he also has enough money -- and incentive -- to hire Sheppard Mullin to try to get out of a grand jury subpoena (and to prosecute an appeal to that effect) that requires production of the relevant bank records, as well as to post a cash bond of $250,000 when s/he was found in contempt for failing to follow the district judge's order to produce the record (which the district court nonetheless stayed in order to allow M.H. to prosecute the appeal).

There's no one on my faculty with those initials.  Not that they'd have the $ anyway.  I'm betting s/he lives in La Jolla.  Or Rancho Santa Fe.  And probably isn't the only one in his or her community who's using overseas accounts to evade taxes.

M.H. just got caught.  Since s/he had the misfortune of using UBS, which ratted its customers out when it was caught.

I feel for M.H.  Truly.  (Sarcasm alert)