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David Kushner, a 55-year-old real-estate investor and property manager from of Cresskill, ducked hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal income taxes without even getting creative, the government alleges.
He simply “deposited payments and income from the businesses and elsewhere into the accounts and then used most of the funds for personal expenses,” Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig said.
Kushner also “failed to file any income tax returns, failed to make any estimated payments for the accounts, and failed to declare most of the funds in the accounts as income on his individual income tax returns” from 2014 to 2016, Honig said.
Those were turbulent years for Kushner.
Some may remember that he and his wife, Nanci, pleaded guilty in 2015 to stalking and harassing a Cresskill High School basketball coach for not giving their son enough playing time.
Anonymous emails created through bogus accounts were traced to the couple’s home and to the Manhattan-based Paradigm Capital Group, a real estate investment and finance company that David Kushner co-founded.
The only one who ended up losing his position in the affair was Kushner, who resigned as president of the Alpine Country Club in Demarest. He also paid a $250 fine, agreed to stay away from the coach and donated $125 to safe-neighborhood programs.
Local police later reported finding booze and pot at a house party that sent an underage boy who apparently drank too much to the hospital.
The IRS also filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Newark in 2017 seeking $698,710 in unpaid federal income taxes, interest and penalties from both Kushners dating back to 2004.
Two years ago, a Long Island investor accused David Kushner and others of pocketing millions in fees while investing $4 million of his money in mortgages that defaulted. A judge tossed the suit because the statute of limitations had expired.
Then came this week’s news.
A federal grand jury in Newark indicted Kushner on Thursday on three counts of tax evasion stemming from fees and additional payments that Honig said he derived from real estate and property management businesses.
The U.S. attorney credited special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation Division’s Newark Office with the investigation leading to the indictment, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Saker of her Narcotics/OCDETF Unit in Newark.
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ALSO SEE: A Mahwah financial adviser pocketed nearly $700,000 and diverted another $300,000 or so of a 98-year-old widow’s money, said state authorities who stripped him of his ability to operate any longer in New Jersey.
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