Last week, the U.S. Marshals finally caught up with 74-year-old Palle Bognaes, also known as Pono, after being a fugitive from justice for tax evasion for more than 14 years, federal officials announced Tuesday.
The former lawyer was sentenced in 2002 to more than six years in prison for obstruction of tax laws, tax evasion and failing to file income taxes. But he didn’t report to federal prison.
Bognaes was arrested in Phoenix.
On Jan. 28, 2002, U.S. District Judge David W. Hagen in Reno, Nevada sentenced Bognaes to six years and eight months in prison. Bognaes was scheduled to report to prison in March 2002, but he didn’t show up, officials said.
The evidence at trial indicated that Bognaes, a lawyer, engaged in a scheme in which he created Unincorporated Business Organizations or UBOs for his clients.
Bognaes then instructed his clients to transfer title of their assets into the UBOs and told them that they did not have to pay personal income taxes on those assets.
Bognaes collected significant fees for his services. Bognaes referred to these UBOs by various names, including Massachusetts Trust, Common Law Trust and Pure Trust Organizations, officials said.
Bognaes also assisted co-defendant Jose Gastanaga of Reno, in setting up a UBO. Together they conspired to evade the payment of more than $2 million in taxes owed by Gastanaga.
Bognaes assisted Gastanaga by attempting to prevent the IRS from seizing two homes for nonpayment of those taxes and obstructed the IRS’s sale of Gastanaga’s interest in a ranch located in Paradise Valley, Nevada.
The evidence also indicated that Bognaes also created UBOs for several other clients, including doctors and chiropractors and taught his clients how to conduct their transactions through the use of nominees and by wiring funds offshore to Turks and Caicos.
For one client, Bognaes generated fake receipts to support $67,000 of false deductions during an IRS audit.
At the time of his arrest, Bognaes contended that his name was Sam Smith. However, after the FBI confirmed that he was in fact, Bognaes. He was taken to prison to begin serving his sentence.