"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." Northwoods is a ministry dedicated to refreshing Christians and challenging them to search for the truth in Christianity, politics, sociology, and science
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"
Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
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She answered “yes” to confirm her acknowledgment of six counts of failing to pay the Spanish government about $15.8 million in taxes between 2012 and 2014.
Under the deal, Shakira is to receive a suspended three-year sentence and a fine of $7.6 million.
The trial, which would have included more than 100 witnesses over the following weeks, was instead called off after just eight minutes.
Prosecutors said in July that they would seek a prison sentence of eight years and two months and a fine of $26 million for the singer, who has won over fans worldwide for her hits in Spanish and English in different musical genres.
The case hinged on where Shakira, now 46, lived during that period. Prosecutors in Barcelona have alleged that the Colombian singer spent more than half of that period in Spain and therefore should have paid taxes on her worldwide income in the country even though her official residence was still in the Bahamas. Tax rates are much lower in the Bahamas than in Spain.
The Justice Department on Monday said Swiss bank Banque Pictet has agreed to pay $122.9 million to the U.S. Treasury in a deferred prosecution agreement concerning charges it helped taxpayers hide money from the Internal Revenue Service. Photo courtesy of Pictet Group/Website
Dec. 5 (UPI) --Major Swiss bank Banque Pictet has admitted to helping U.S. taxpayers hide billions of taxable funds from the Internal Review Service with the use of secret accounts, the Justice Department said.
Federal prosecutors on Monday said that between 2008 and 2014, Banque Pictet, the private banking division of the nearly 218-year-old Pictet Group, held approximately $5.6 billion in 1,637 accounts for U.S. taxpayers, helping them evade paying the IRS some $50.6 million in taxes.
As part of the deferred prosecution agreement announced Monday by the Justice Department, Banque Pictet agrees to pay some $122.9 million to the U.S. Treasury and to continue cooperating with the federal government.
"This case should provide a clear message to others who try to hide their assets and income offshore," IRS Criminal Investigation Chief Jim Lee said in a statement.
"Offshore tax evasion is a priority for IRS Criminal Investigation, and today's deferred prosecution agreement with Bank Pictet collects more than $120 million owed to the U.S. government."
Prosecutors said the Pictet Group specifically helped its clients evade paying U.S. taxes by opening and maintaining undeclared accounts. The bank was also found to have maintained accounts of certain U.S.-taxpayer clients within its group that allowed further concealment of undeclared accounts, and that its employees either knew or should have known some of their clients where sidestepping their responsibilities to the U.S. federal government.
"In every instance, managing partners approved the opening of new private client relationships and were informed of the closing of U.S. taxpayer-clients' accounts, which included some undeclared accounts," the Justice Department said Monday.
Of the money Banque Pictet has agreed to pay the United States, more than $52 million represents gross fees it earned on its undeclared accounts, nearly $32 million in restitution to the IRS in unpaid taxes resulting from its participation in the conspiracy and a penalty of nearly $39 million.
If Banque Pictet continues to comply with the agreement, prosecutors agree to defer its prosecution for three years, after which it will seek to dismiss the criminal charges against the bank, the federal department explained.
In a statement, Banque Pictet said the amount it agreed to pay will come from its general provisions and profits.
"This resolution follows Pictet's extensive cooperation with the U.S. authorities, in full compliance with Swiss law," it said.
"Pictet is pleased to have resolved this matter and will continue to take steps to ensure its clients meet their tax obligations."
Prosecutors in Spain accuse Shakira of more tax fraud
By Jonna Lorenz
Shakira arrives in the press room at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. earlier this month. On Tuesday, Spanish prosecutors released new charges against her, alleging the Columbian singer failed to pay $6.4 million in taxes in 2018. Photo by Jason Szenes/UPI | License Photo
Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Spanish prosecutors released new charges Tuesday against Shakira, alleging the Colombian singer failed to pay $6.4 million in taxes in 2018. The charges come two months before she is to stand trial on earlier tax fraud charges.
Prosecutors accused Shakira, who currently lives in Miami, of consciously and voluntarily submitting false personal income tax and wealth tax declarations, El Mundo reported.
The complaint alleges the singer used a series of "simulated contracts" to transfer music rights, diverting a portion of her income to offshore companies.
"Shakira maintained at all times full availability and control over her own music rights," the complaint states.
The Higher Court of Justice of Catalonia announced the investigation in July, saying prosecutors alleged two counts of tax fraud in 2018.
Shakira was indicted last year on separate charges in Spain alleging she didn't pay nearly $14.8 million in taxes between 2012 and 2014.
She faces the possibility of eight years in prison and a fine of nearly $24.5 million if convicted in that case after rejecting a settlement offer. She has maintained her innocence.
"I am confident that I have enough proof to support my case and that justice will prevail in my favor," she told Elle magazine last year.
Ex-top cop helped Bob Menendez’s wife leave deadly car crash
A retired top policeman helped Robert Menendez‘s wife-to-be leave the scene of her fatal car crash without a sobriety test or handing over her phone.
The Post has learned that Michael Mordaga, the former director of Hackensack police and an ex-chief of detectives in the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, was on the scene within minutes when Nadine Arslanian slammed her black Mercedes into Richard Koop in Bogota, NJ, in December 2018.
Mordaga, 66, helped her leave behind the totaled car and take her belongings from it after quizzing the patrolman dealing with the crash on what he planned to do.
Dashcam footage and 911 recordings do not show Arslanian asking after the victim, but they do show her refusing to have her cellphone searched and also suggest she did not call 911 until officers were already on the scene — then told them the wrong location for the crash.
Dashcam showed Arslanian shivering in her fur coat and short dress as she was questioned by a Bogota, NJ, patrolman about Richard Koop’s death.
Bogota Police Department
A witness claimed that she told cops she was going to call someone for help.
At the time, Arslanian was dating both Menendez, whom she married in 2020, and her long-term boyfriend Douglas Anton, an attorney who went on to represent R. Kelly in his sex-trafficking trial.
The fatal collision on December 12, 2018, led to part of the sweeping bribery and corruption charges brought against her and Menendez, which they both deny.
What we know about Bob Menendez's indictment
New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez is facing federal corruption charges related to an alleged years-long scheme.
Menendez allegedly accepted bribes, including gold bars, in exchange for helping three businessmen, Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, and the country of Egypt, according to officials.
Menendez and his wife, Nadine, were charged with taking hundreds of thousands in bribes, according to a Manhattan federal indictment.
When the feds raided Menendez’s Englewood Cliffs home in June 2022, they found a 2019 Mercedes C-Class, at least 13 gold bars, and $566,000 in cash “stuffed in envelopes.” Another $70,000 in cash was found in Nadine’s safe deposit box.
The feds say Menendez also received mortgage payments and paid for a low-show or no-show job and home furnishings.
This isn’t the first time the 69-year-old Democrat is facing federal corruption charges. In 2015, Menendez was accused of taking gifts from Florida eye surgeon Salomon Melgen.
The “gifts” included a Paris vacation, flights on a private jet, and vacations at Melgen’s villa in the Dominican Republic.
A month after the crash, Arslanian texted Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman also indicted in the bribery scheme, about the loss of her car, and he later provided her with a 2019 Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible, worth $60,000, prosecutors allege.
I really hope Nadine is investigated as a potential spy for Egypt. It just looks so right.
Arslanian’s role in 49-year-old Koop’s death, however, only emerged Wednesday, in dashcam footage and other records released by the Bogota Police Department to NorthJersey.com.
Nadine Arslanian’s black Mercedes was smashed up after she hit and killed a pedestrian in 2018.
Law Offices Rosemarie Arnold
A broken windshield, maybe a dented hood, how does that justify writing the car off?
Menendez’s future wife told cops she didn’t see Koop, 49.
But she was driving her car fast enough that the collision flung Koop’s body to the curb just steps from his own house on East Main Street in Bogota, then crashed into a parked car.
Sheri Breen, an attorney for Koop’s estate, told NorthJersey.com that other footage from a business had shown that Arslanian “moved her car around his body as he was lying in the road and she did not come to his aid or to even check on him.”
Records also suggest that Arslanian was not the first person to call 911 after the crash, at 7:35 p.m., because the dispatcher told her an officer was already on the scene.
She told the dispatcher she was in “Teaneck,” which borders on Bogota.
Koop was struck in front of 155 E. Main St. in Bogota. That address is next door, just to the west, 311 DeGraw Ave. in Teaneck.
Arslanian, shivering in a fur coat and short dress as she stood in the road, initially agreed to allow cops to search her phone but then said she wanted an attorney because “I don’t want to say anything wrong.”
This was where Koop died after being hit by Arslanian’s Mercedes. When she called 911, an officer was already on the scene.
Google Maps
“Why was the guy standing in the middle of the road?” she asked. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Later she told the patrolman: “He jumped on my windshield.” The footage does not show her asking about the victim’s fate, but she is heard asking to get something that an officer said had gone “in the ambulance.”
Minutes later, the dashcam shows someone off-camera being asked: “You’re retired, you said?” That person, identified by The Post as Mordaga, said “Yes,” and that he was retired from “Hackensack.”
In the footage, his voice could be heard as he said: “I don’t even know her. That’s my buddy’s wife who’s friends with her. He said could you do me a favor and take her up there because her friend just got in a car accident.”
Former French president Sarkozy placed under formal investigation
in Libya funding probe
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was on Friday charged as part of an investigation into possible witness tampering, adding to his long list of legal woes, including over illegal campaign financing.
Following 30 hours of questioning over nearly four days, investigating magistrates decided they had grounds to charge Sarkozy with benefitting from witness tampering and conspiring to pervert the course of justice, a judiciary source told AFP.
The case against Sarkozy, still an influential figure in French conservative politics, is linked to allegations that he took money from late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi to fund one of his election campaigns, for which he is to stand trial in 2025.
A key witness in that case, Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, had claimed he delivered three suitcases stuffed with a total of five million euros ($5.3 million at current rates) in cash in 2006 and 2007.
But in 2020 Takieddine suddenly retracted his incriminating statement, raising suspicions that Sarkozy may have put pressure on the witness to change his mind.
The 68-year-old has already been convicted twice for corruption and influence peddling in separate cases involving attempts to influence a judge and campaign financing.
Sarkozy, who ran France from 2007 to 2012, has appealed against both judgements.
On Friday, his lawyers said in a statement sent to AFP that their client would "defend his honour" in the latest case, too.
At least nine other people are under suspicion of participating in the alleged conspiracy, which investigators said may have involved payment to Takieddine.
Some of the suspects are also believed to have attempted to bribe a Lebanese judge to obtain the release of Kadhafi's son held in Lebanon -- in the hope of getting the Libyan leader to help Sarkozy persuade the French judiciary of his innocence.
In a transcript of Sarkozy's statements during questioning, seen by AFP, the former president said there was "no material evidence or any wiretap to incriminate me in this craziness".
Should the case go to trial, it will be the third looming court date for Sarkozy.
In addition the 2025 Libyan financing trial, which relates to Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign, he is scheduled to stand trial next month for alleged violation of campaign financing rules in his 2012 bid for re-election, which he lost to Socialist Francois Hollande.
Argentina's public prosecutor on Monday asked that Vice President Cristina Kirchner be sentenced to 12 years in prison and disqualified from public office for life for alleged corruption during her two terms as president.
Kirchner, 69, is accused of fraudulently awarding public works contracts in her fiefdom in Patagonia, but even if convicted she would not go to jail so long as she benefits from parliamentary immunity as an elected senator.
A verdict is expected at the end of the year.
There are two ways she could lose her parliamentary immunity: either by losing her senate seat at the next election, or if the Supreme Court were to ratify an eventual guilty verdict.
Minutes after public prosecutor Diego Luciani's request was made public, the office of President Alberto Fernandez issued a statement condemning "the judicial and media persecution" of Kirchner.
"None of the actions attributed to the ex-president has been proved and the whole accusation is based purely on the function she exercised at that time, which sadly degrades the most basic principles of modern criminal law."
Another 12 people are also accused of involvement in the illicit attribution of public works contracts in the southern Santa Cruz province in favor of businessman Lazaro Baez.
The period investigated includes Kirchner's eight years in office from 2007 to 2015 and the preceding four years when her late husband Nestor Kirchner, who died in 2010, was president.
Luciani hit out at "an authentic system of institutional corruption" which he said was "probably the biggest corruption operation the country has known," while Sergio Mola, another public prosecutor, said "there were systematic irregularities in the tenders over a 12-year period."
"The evidence clearly demonstrates illicit manoeuvres," added Mola, who said the defendants had sought to defraud the state through "discretion in the use of funds."
"It is not credible that Cristina Fernandez (Kirchner) would not have known about anything in the solitude of her office," said Mola.
Shakira faces 8 years in prison over tax evasion in Spain
By Pedro Oliveira Jr.
Colombian superstar Shakira was indicted Friday on six counts of tax fraud in Spain, where she faces eight years in prison and a fine of nearly $24.5 million. File photo by Rune Hellestad/UPI | License Photo
July 29 (UPI) -- Shakira's hips don't lie, but according to Spanish prosecutors, her tax returns do.
The Colombian superstar was indicted Friday on six counts of tax fraud in Spain, where she faces eight years in prison and a fine of nearly $24.5 million.
Lawyers for the singer spent weeks in negotiations with tax authorities, hoping for a deal that would've quashed charges and excluded jail time. In May, judges threw out a defense appeal to have the case dismissed, El Mundo reported.
But this week Shakira rejected the state's settlement offer, maintaining her "absolute innocence" and blasting the prosecution for "trampling her rights," El PaÃs reported.
Shakira has maintained throughout the proceedings that she lived in the Bahamas and spent much of that time traveling for work, officially moving to Spain in 2015.
Yet her defense team is in for a tough fight to prove her residence was elsewhere in those two years.
The case against Shakira is further bolstered by a detailed investigation by El Pais, tracking the singer's day to day in those two years to show she spent more than half the year there. She was reportedly in Spain for 246 days in 2012, 210 days in 2013 and 243 days in 2014.
Her life in Barcelona included times in music studios, French tutoring, twice-weekly visits to a hair salon and zumba classes, El PaÃs reported.
Alabama church secretary pleads guilty to embezzling $209K
By Michael Gryboski,
Mainline Church Editor
Christian Post
The former financial secretary of an Alabama congregation has confessed to embezzling approximately $209,000 from the church over the course of several years.
Sharon Collins, who worked at First Baptist Church of Foleyfrom 2007 to 2019, admitted in a recent plea agreement that she stole $209,745 via multiple church credit cards.
Collins admitted to using cards issued in both her name and the names of coworkers to steal the money and use it for expenses, satellite TV bills, plane trips and even a college degree, reported local media outlet WALA.
U.S. District Judge Terry Moorer read out the 12 counts of wire fraud to Collins on Wednesday, with Collins pleading guilty to them all. Sentencing is scheduled for November.
"I imagine, for you, this is embarrassing," Moorer told Collins, as quoted by WALA. "Even if you find this embarrassing, it's not the worst thing in the world someone has ever done, and you can live this down."
Although the plea agreement will result in the government dropping 20 other identity theft and wire fraud charges, Collins could still face up to 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the Mobile-based NBC 15 News.
The college degree she used church funds to pay for was a bachelor's degree in psychology and criminal justice at Troy University.
Now that's funny!
Collins reportedly began stealing money from the church in 2008. The criminal actions were not uncovered until years later when a new pastor and the finance committee realized that a savings account valued at around $100,000 had disappeared.
In July 2019, the church fired Collins, and the congregation turned the matter over to the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office and later the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Foley FBC Senior Pastor Drew Whittington said in a statement that the congregation is "grieved about what took place" but also "grateful for the work of law enforcement officials."
"We have taken the appropriate steps to uphold the ethical stewardship of God's household," stated Whittington, as quoted by WALA.
"This has been an unfortunate chapter in our history, but we are thankful to put it behind us and focus on being a healthy church that uses our resources to further the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
