Sun Myung Moon/tax case
In 1982 U.S. federal prosecutors charged Rev. Sun Myung Moon with criminal tax fraud, and a federal Grand Jury brought forward an indictment. The charges stated that Moon failed declare as income (and pay taxes on) $112,000 in earned interest on a Chase Manhattan bank account, $50,000 of corporate stock.
Rev. Moon's chief defense was his contention that he was holding the money and stock on behalf of his church and thus that it wasn't actually his.
The prosecution maintained that both the money and stock were his personal property.
The judge forbade any mention of religion at the trial and denied Moon's request to have a bench trial.
Upon arriving in the United States in the early 1970s, Rev. Moon had established an account at Chase Manhattan Bank with approximately one million dollars in funds.
- We need some reference for this and a more precise figure. I found one account claiming 1.7 million, but it was a cultwatch site, definitely not npov, and hence imo not entirely reliable.
One of the defenses used at trial was that the funds were not really his, but were held in trust for members of the Japanese Unification Church. The United States church had only about 300 members at the time and had not yet incorporated. Moon claimed that, after using a small portion of those funds for his family's living expenses (and declaring the portion used on his income tax returns), he transferred the balance to the Unification Church of America after its incorporation. Holding church funds in a minister's name is a fairly commonplace action, particularly in small churches, and many churches filed amicus curiae briefs in Moon's support.
There was quite a bit of sentiment against Moon and his church in the United States at that time. Moon and his supporters felt that they were being specifically targetted because of their religious beliefs and practices. The opposition claimed that Moon was a con artist and that his organization was a criminal enterprise.
The government offered to drop all the charges if Rev. Moon would give up his green card (permanent resident visa) and agree never to visit the US again. Rev. Moon preferred to go to trial, professing his belief in the fairness of American justice but saying that he would not have been prosecuted if "his skin had been white or his religion Episcopalian."
- Reference, please, for the government's offer and the quote (Sorry, I could not find documentation; it's a story circulated among us UC members -- Ed Poor.)
The jury determined that Moon's failure to pay taxes was an intentional evasion rather than a misunderstanding of the law. The charge of criminal tax fraud carries a high legal requirement -- the prosecution must prove to a jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant intended to evade paying taxes, not simply that the taxes were unpaid due to a mistake or failure to understand the law.
Moon was convicted of the charges, and given an 18 month sentence and a $15,000 fine. He served 13 months of the sentence at Danbury minimum-security prison and because of "good behavior" was released to a half-way house.
External Resources:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/132/34.0.html Christianity Today September 7, 1984
- See also : Sun Myung Moon