Dallas Billionaire, Far-Right Republican Donor & Offshore Baron Charles Wyly Dies In Car Accident

Dallas billionaire Charles Wyly, whose $20 million gift to the AT&T Performing Arts Center helped build the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, but who was facing insider trading charges, was killed Sunday in a car wreck in Colorado.

The Wyly brothers’ high-profile philanthropy was nearly matched by their political influence. They gave more than $1 million to the Republican National Committee between 2000 and 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and were involved in the early political career of U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas.

But the Wylys’ political activity — along with their public profile — fell markedly around 2005, when the SEC began investigating their business activities. The subsequent lawsuit accused the brothers of illegal stock sales worth more than half a billion dollars.

Using offshore tax shelters named after the Louisiana towns where both grew up, the SEC charged, the brothers concealed $550 million worth of transactions between 1992 and 2004, spending the profits on jewelry, art, real estate and charity.
The brothers dismissed the investigation as a waste of tax dollars and seemed publicly confident they would beat the charges.

“They’re gonna lose,” Sam Wyly told The Dallas Morning News in 2010, “That means we’re gonna win.”

Recent rulings had gone against them. A federal judge refused to dismiss the case in March. Two weeks before Wyly’s death, the court ordered the brothers to turn over several documents they had sought to withhold under attorney-client privilege.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/39939/20100731/billionaire-wyly-brothers-charged-with-tax-evasion-insider-trading-by-sec.htm

Billionaire Wyly brothers charged with tax evasion, insider trading by SEC

Billionaire brothers, Samuel and Charles Wyly, who founded Maverick Capital Management, one of the world’s biggest hedge funds with $11.4 billion in assets, have been accused of civil fraud charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The SEC, Thursday, accused the Dallas-based brothers of tax evasion by creating a complex web of offshore companies and trusts over 13 years that allowed them to amass and stash away $550 million of gains from stock trading of four companies where they served as directors.

The Wyly brothers held stakes as high as 16.1 percent to 36.7 percent in four companies — Michaels Stores Inc, Sterling Commerce Inc, Sterling Software Inc and Scottish Annuity & Life Holdings Ltd — and yet withheld information from investors, the SEC said.

The SEC also charged the Wyly brothers’ attorney, Michael French, and their stockbroker, Louis Schaufele III, in connection with their roles in the scheme. French was on the board of directors at three of the companies.

Maverick, which was founded by the Wyly brothers and trader Lee Ainslie, who got his start with hedge fund industry legend Julian Robertson, is not under investigation by the regulators.

The federal regulator has sought seek various financial fines and sanctions against the Wyly brothers and their associates.

“The cloak of secrecy has been lifted from the complex web of foreign structures used by the Wylys to evade the securities laws,” SEC deputy enforcement chief Lorin Reisner said in a statement. “They used these structures to conceal hundreds of millions of dollars of gains in violation of the disclosure requirements for corporate insiders.”