Tax
Fraud By Art
Gallery Owner
Mary Boone
Yields 30
Months in Jail
Starting May
15 No Bail
Pending Appeal
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Periscope
video
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
February 14 –
Art
gallery owner
Mary Boone
after pleading
guilty to tax
fraud was
sentenced on
February 14 to
30 months in
prison to be
followed by a
year of
supervised
release with
180 hours of
community
service.
Judge Alvin K.
Hellerstein of the U.S.
District Court for the
Southern District of New York
said that tax fraud is a crime
that can and must be deterred.
His sentence provided for 90
hours of community service
with the non-profit Free Arts
NYC or one like it, and 90
hours of service to New York
City Board of Education
beginning, he said, in June
2021.
Unlike two recent
Judge Hellerstein sentencees,
Norman
Seabrook and Murray
Huberfeld, Boone through
her lawyer Robert S. Fink did
not announce an appeal and ask
for bail pending appeal. On
Worth Street outside the SDNY
courthouse, Inner City Press
asked Boone what she thought
of the community service
requirement. She did not
answer, swarmed by
photographers as she awaited
the white luxury car she drove
off in. Periscope video
here.
Her tax
fraud involved
mis-characterizing as
deductible business expenses
such things as Louis Vuitton
and Hermes charges of nearly
$20,000, beauty salon bills of
$24,380, and $15,000 in
jewelry. Fink said this came
from mental problems, feeling
like the world was ending. He
emphasized that Boone has been
dropped by Chase Bank and the
Century Club and even by her
therapist, who felt that
reporting on her from the
pre-sentencing report made
other clients doubt she could
keep their
confidences. Judge
Hellerstein told Fink he
personally fought to keep such
PSRs confidential but that
other judges who prioritized
transparency won out. He
emerged after hearing Boone's
written statement which
pleaded to be kept out to jail
to continue her work with his
sentence, including the
community service. Fink
requested the Women's Camp in
Danbury, Connecticut. Boone is
to turn herself in, on May 15
before 2 pm. Whether as some
surmise there will be a
whistleblower payment is not
known...
A dispute about
coffee mugs erupted in the
U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New York
on February 11 before Judge
Gregory Woods who is also
handling the criminal leaking
of Treasury Department
reports, see below. Vermont
potters Zcups LLC, represented
in Judge Woods' courtroom by a
young couple and their two
sons, accuse Home Essentials
and Beyond of selling knock
off coffee cups with teh same
slogans on this, "A Cup of
Hope," in violation of
trademark and trade dress. But
Home Essential's lawyer
questioned why their cups
didn't have the "TM" or "R"
symbol on them, and said that
in any event Home Essential
was no longer selling these
mugs. Judge Woods encouraged
settlement, saying that
litigation is expensive in
light of the total volume of
6000 mugs mis-sold, allegedly.
It was agreed the parties
would exchange sales
information under a
confidentiality order, and try
to dispense with this cup of
bitterness. The case is
1:18-cv-09196-GHW Zpots LLC v.
Home Essentials & Beyond,
Inc. We'll have more on
this.
***
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