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Retired Judge Set to Settle with IRS
RICHARD BURGESS
Lafayette, LA – March 31, 2004
Edmund Reggie, a retired Crowley city judge and recent inductee into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame, has agreed to settle a lawsuit over tax debt that government attorneys alleged was more than $800,000, according to court records.
The Justice Department contended in a lawsuit filed in 2001 that Reggie orchestrated a plan to hide assets from the Internal Revenue Service in an effort to keep from paying tax debt he owed.
Reggie, a former member of the Democratic National Committee who has counted political elites on the national and state levels among his friends, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Reggie also is the father-in-law of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, who is married to his daughter Victoria.
Reggie has said that much of the tax debt has been disputed for more than 20 years and that he was involved in no scheme to fool the IRS.
As part of the settlement agreement, which has not been finalized, the IRS will receive $575,430.85 from the sale of property in New Orleans that Reggie's family had an interest in, according to court papers filed this week.
The money has been held in a court account while the case was pending.
According to court documents, the lawsuit will be dismissed after "the disbursement of the funds" and "certain other actions by the United States and the Reggie defendants."
Neither attorneys for the government nor Reggie returned calls seeking comment.
The lawsuit focused on a 1989 agreement between Reggie and his wife, Doris, to split property that they once legally shared and on the subsequent transfer of some of the husband's property to the wife.
The agreement and property transfer, according to the lawsuit, were part of a plan by Edmund Reggie to hide assets so he would not have to pay tax debt he owed for 1975-77.
He said that the property transferred legitimately belonged to his wife [Doris Boustany Reggie].
Copyright 2004, The Daily Advertiser
From: The Daily Advertiser, Lafayette, LA, March 31, 2004. Section: NEWS. Reprinted in accordance with the "fair use" provision of Title 17 U.S.C. § 107 for a non-profit educational purpose.
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