Federal prosecutors are trying to seize a $15 million fishing compound in Colorado and $77.9 million in a Swiss bank account linked to an alleged fraud by billionaire Robert Brockman, who was indicted last year in the biggest U.S. tax-evasion case ever against an individual.
Beyond claims that he failed to report $2 billion of income, Brockman is accused of using a foreign company he secretly controlled to buy secondary debt in his own software firm, Reynolds & Reynolds, at a deep discount in 2009. Prosecutors claim that assets tied to the debt fraud are subject to forfeiture, including a fishing lodge he developed on the Frying Pan River, according to U.S. court filings in March.
The targeting of cash in Switzerland’s Mirabaud Bank and 143 acres where Brockman has spent parts of his summers fly fishing for rainbow and brown trout are the only known attempts to take his property since he was indicted in October. The billionaire may be forced to turn over some assets even if a judge agrees with claims by Brockman’s attorneys that he isn’t competent to stand trial or he is found not guilty, said Peter Hardy, an attorney at Ballard Spahr who edits a blog about money laundering.