Ugolini
More than 20 years ago, a group of former salesmen for Houston software entrepreneur Robert Brockman sued their old boss, claiming in court that he had deprived them of commissions by directing a portion of customer payments to a Cayman Islands entity.
Mr. Brockman twice appealed to the Texas Supreme Court as he tried to avoid answering detailed questions about the offshore entity, and he settled the case in 2001 under confidential terms.
Although the salesmen didn’t realize it at the time, they had stumbled onto early signs of what the government later called the largest criminal case ever brought against a person accused of evading U.S. taxes. Federal prosecutors in October charged Mr. Brockman with using a web of offshore entities to conceal about $2 billion in income from the Internal Revenue Service.
Mr. Brockman has pleaded not guilty to 39 criminal counts, including tax evasion, wire fraud, money laundering and evidence destruction. He and his attorneys didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Prosecutors allege the bulk of the tax evasion stemmed from profits Mr. Brockman made from investments with Vista Equity Partners, a private-equity firm he helped launch in 2000 and which now manages $73 billion in funds dedicated to software investments.
This story first appeared in Ugolini
