Beverly Hills Man Pleads Guilty to Falsifying Tax Return

A Beverly Hills man who admitted filing a false federal income tax return for 2007 faces up to three years in prison and $250,000 in fines, the U.S. Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service announced today.

Monajem Hakimijoo -- also known as Manny Hakimi -- entered his guilty plea Thursday in Los Angeles federal court and is scheduled to be sentenced on April 28.

According to court documents, Hakimijoo, a U.S. citizen, and a relative maintained an undeclared bank account in Israel at Mizrahi Bank in the name of Kalamar Enterprises, a Turks and Caicos Islands entity they used to conceal their ownership of the account.

The funds in the Kalamar account were used as collateral for back-to-back loans obtained from the Los Angeles branch of Mizrahi Bank, court papers show.

Although Hakimijoo and his relative claimed the interest paid on the back-to-back loans as a business deduction for federal tax purposes, they failed to report the interest income earned in their undeclared, Israel-based account as income on their tax returns, according to the IRS.

In total, Hakimijoo failed to report $282,000 in interest income when the highest balance in the Kalamar Enterprises account was about $4 million, according to the IRS.

Hakimijoo has agreed to pay a civil penalty to the IRS in the amount of 50 percent of the highest balance of his one-half interest in the Kalamar account, officials said.

--City News Service