UBS client pleads guilty to tax evasion

UBS admitted in 2009 that it had helped U.S. clients hide money from the IRS and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department in which it agreed to provide names and account information to U.S. authorities.

The Justice Department said Paul Zabczuk of The Woodlands, Texas, had pleaded guilty to hiding assets from the IRS in a case prosecuted at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Zabczuk admitted that he failed to reveal the assets and the interest earned from an account at UBS, one of Switzerland's largest banks.

Zabczuk is free on $1 million bail and will be sentenced June 22.

Court papers say Zabczuk, a consultant specializing in purchasing and sales of chemicals, directed foreign customers to make payments through bank accounts in Switzerland and the Bahamas. He also moved funds from domestic banks to these accounts "disguised … as commissions," the Justice Department said.

Zabczuk could be sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison on the dodges that created a tax debt of $267,597.

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