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Criminal Law

: Third Circuit Blog

Third Circuit holds that in criminal tax violations, willful blindness satisfies the legal knowledge component of the willfulness element.

By Candace Hom, Melinda Ghilardi, Nancy Rimmer, Sarah Gannett, Renee Pietropaolo and Tieffa Harper

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United States v. Stadtmauer, No. 09-1575 (3d Cir. Sept. 9, 2010), involves several issues challenging the conviction, after a two-month trial, of Richard Stadtmauer, an executive in a promiment New Jersey real estate development firm. The Government charged that he had been involved in filing several fraudulent tax returns that claimed several categories of expenditures (such as charitable contributions) as fully deductible business expenses. The most significant legal challenge involved a willful blindness jury instruction. Stadtmauer argued that the Supreme Court?s opinion in Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192 (1991), precluded a willful blindness instruction. Cheek holds that criminal tax liability does not attach to a person who, in good faith, is ignorant of a legal duty, misunderstands that legal duty, or believes that such a legal duty does not exist...continue to full post

Full post as published by Third Circuit Blog on October 01, 2010 (boomark / email).