Lawyer convicted of tax evasion blames high-profile partner
Joseph Richichi, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion in April, says in court papers that he put money in bank accounts that should have paid taxes as a safety net because of his failing health and to prevent the collapse of his law firm.
He says his partner, Michael "Mickey" Sherman, incurred more than $1.1 million in federal tax liens on the property they owned, bounced checks and failed to pay him back $25,000 he loaned in 1987 to build a house.
Sherman represented Skakel at his trial, and Skakel's current attorney plans to argue that he provided ineffective counsel because he was dealing with financial problems.
In court papers supporting a request that Richichi be sentenced to home confinement rather than prison, his attorney wrote that his case does not involve the exorbitant lifestyle often associated with the violation of tax laws.
"There were no $6,000 shower curtains," he wrote.
Richichi failed to pay more than $600,000 in taxes on more than $1.8 million he earned as an attorney from 2000 to 2005, prosecutors say. He faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 19.
Richichi, 61, said Sherman had an "excessive" outstanding income tax liability. He also quotes his paralegal saying employees' health insurance was canceled several times because "another partner's" check would bounce.
Richichi "acted perhaps out of unrealistic insecurity and fear," his attorney wrote, citing a psychological evaluation.
Telephone messages were left Thursday for Sherman, who frequently appears as a television commentator on criminal cases.
Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, is serving 20 years to life in prison after he was convicted in 2002 of killing his neighbor, Martha Moxley, in 1975 in Greenwich.
Hope Seeley, Skakel's attorney, has said she plans to file a petition in state court arguing that Skakel had ineffective counsel at his trial when Sherman represented him. Seeley has said Sherman failed to fully investigate witnesses because he had financial difficulties, a claim Sherman denies.
Skakel has lost other appeals of his conviction, including a recent hearing in which Seeley found a witness who challenged the testimony of a classmate who said Skakel confessed to the killing.
Sherman also has been investigated by the IRS, according to Hakan Yalincak, a former New York University student convicted of a hedge fund scheme. Yalincak, Sherman's former client, said in May that an IRS agent asked him questions about Sherman.
Sherman was reprimanded in May by a statewide bar grievance panel for not having a written fee agreement and not providing enough details to disciplinary authorities in the case.
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