Big defeat and blow for DOJ In The Raoul Weil Case ‏!

Raoul Weil Found Not Guilty Of Tax Fraud

Mark Daly and Jason Poole did a very poor job ! Liechti was not a credible witness and probably the real criminal in this case. It is a travesty that "certain people" traveled to the USA , violated there the Swiss banking secrecy laws and did admit to money laundering and would not be prosecuted in Switzerland but I think this will change very quickly now.

The Weil verdict was the second trial loss for the Justice Department in an offshore tax case in a matter of days. The jury took only 75 minutes to reach its verdict after a 3-week trial that ended abruptly on Monday when Weil's defense team decided not to call any witnesses, saying the government had failed to make its case. For a jury to acquit after only an hour means that there were some huge holes in the government's case. The jury sent a strong message to the government. This case should never have been brought to begin with !!
The great news as a result of the verdict is that future efforts by the U.S. government to bring tax fraud cases will require more than just the word of former alleged co-conspirators. Corporate defendants will also be less likely to cooperate with the government and may instead choose to begin fighting the allegations made against their institutions.

I hear that Schumacher and Liechti are facing a possible trial in CH now to stop this ever happening again that swiss bankers testify against each other in a US court with regards to swiss banking secrecy laws !!
This is an important slip up from the DOJ which I was predicting was just a matter of time of happening .
The swiss DOJ will now make sure that in the future no sweetheart deals by US authorities will motivate former swiss UBS,CS etc. colleagues to chose to cooperate with U.S. authorities in exchange for favorable sentencing.

In addition "the U.S. Justice Department which spent 6 years seeking to prosecute Weil, including extraditing him from Italy last year..." As a US taxpayer I really would like to know how many of my tax dollars were wasted in this failed and overblown effort ! We have according to the law firm Caplin and Drysdale annually over 20 million tax cheats living and working in the US who imo. deserve more attention and bigger fines to make sure they pay their fair share as well !!

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/04/ubs-ag-banking-weil-idUKL1N0ST2UY20141104
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/11/03/top-ubs-banker-not-guilty-of-tax-evasion-big-blow-to-offshore-crackdown/

 Commentators have subsequently suggested that the government erred by charging one single conspiracy involving Weil and all of UBS’s U.S. clients who held secret accounts. Another government error was not appropriately considering the Weil’s ability to re-direct blame to lower-level employees, who directly manage the relationship with the bank’s U.S. clients, and to the U.S. clients themselves, who filed false tax returns with the IRS.
There are approximately 30 bankers and advisers who have been indicted by the Justice Department living in Switzerland, successfully avoiding extradition. And, approximately 100 Swiss banks had applied to the Justice Department’s amnesty program for Swiss banks, many of which recently pushed back on the obligations the Justice Department was requiring to obtain a non-prosecution agreement. Whether some of those banks drop out of the program in light of the government’s failure in these trials will soon be seen.