Hochman Salkin Agrees to Settle Schulman Case for $4.9 Million
By JAMES BATES Nov. 16, 1988 12 AM PT | LATIMES
From <Hochman Salkin Agrees to Settle Schulman Case for $4.9 Million - Los Angeles Times>
Times Staff Writer
One of the West Coast’s leading tax-law firms has agreed to settle for $4.9 million three class-action lawsuits accusing the firm of fraud and negligence stemming from work it did for convicted tax shelter promoter Gerald L. Schulman, court papers show.
The firm, Hochman, Salkin & DeRoy in Beverly Hills, is one of the defendants named in the class-action lawsuits, which have been consolidated in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The proposed agreement would partly settle those suits, which were filed on behalf of more than 5,000 investors seeking to recover some of the $200 million they invested in the 1970s and early 1980s in real estate partnerships promoted by Schulman as tax shelters.
Hochman, Salkin & DeRoy worked for Schulman, a North Hollywood businessman, in the early 1980s preparing tax opinions for distribution to his investors. The Internal Revenue Service, contending that Schulman’s tax shelters took interest deductions on phony loans he arranged, later disallowed many of the deductions investors believed that they would receive, leaving them with hefty back-tax bills.
Among the allegations made in the lawsuits by investors was that the law firm failed to properly disclose the tax structure of the programs Schulman promoted and that it failed to disclose relevant details about Schulman’s past, including his being disbarred in New York in 1969 and a two-year suspension as certified public accountant that he received in 1973 in California.
The settlement involves both the law firm and partners George DeRoy, Bruce I. Hochman, Avram Salkin and Martin Gelfand. Court papers show that the $4.9 million would be paid into a fund by the law firm’s insurance carrier, First State Insurance, to be distributed later to investors.
Kenneth A. Liebman, a lawyer with Irell & Manella in Los Angeles, which represents Hochman, Salkin & DeRoy, declined to comment Tuesday on the settlement. According to court documents, Hochman, Salkin & DeRoy denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to settle the lawsuits to avoid potentially long and costly litigation. The settlement still must be approved by U.S. District Judge A. Andrew Hauk after details are disclosed to investors.
Schulman was once one of the nation’s largest tax-shelter promoters, building a real estate network of nearly 600 buildings, about two-thirds of them U.S. Post Offices. He was convicted in February by U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer of 20 counts of felony tax fraud and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service.
In a separate development, a group of dissident Schulman investors filed a lawsuit Monday in Los Angeles that, unlike the class-action lawsuits, names as a defendant the investment banking firm Drexel Burnham Lambert for its role in helping finance Schulman.
In March, The Times reported that Schulman, without the knowledge of his investors, received $60 million from Drexel in exchange for notes secured by the investors’ buildings. The notes were later sold to Executive Life, a unit of First Executive Corp. that is one of Drexel’s best customers and which was also named in the lawsuit.
A Drexel spokesman said the firm has not seen the lawsuit and declined comment. Drexel officials have previously denied any wrongdoing in providing money to Schulman, which they have said was used largely to restructure debt on the properties.
Separately, Pfaelzer at a court hearing Tuesday said that Schulman’s community service should involve working with poor or disadvantaged people. She also ordered him to cooperate with Internal Revenue Service officials in providing his personal tax records for review.
Hochman Salkin Agrees to Settle Schulman Case for $4.9 Million - Los Angeles Times
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Obituary: Daddy Bruce Declared a Saint by Community, So Honest…
Lawyer Remembered for Integrity as Gore Joins in Tribute to Bruce Hochman
Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Thursday, March 21, 2002
Page 4
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer http://www.metnews.com/articles/gore032102.htm
Bruce Hochman was “a man of flawless integrity,” former Vice President Al Gore told a Jewish legal group gathered in honor of the Beverly Hills attorney/philanthropist, who died last August.
“When he knew he was standing on principle, there was no way to sway him,” Gore said of Hochman, a former chairman of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and a founding partner of the law firm that is now Hochman, Salkin, Rettig, Toscher & Perez.
Gore was the keynote speaker at the gathering, a fundraiser for the federation’s Legal Services Division. He recalled Hochman as a “very good friend” and an “American success story,” who believed above all else in “God, the law, and the boundless capacity of the human heart.”
Seldom, Gore said, had he ever seen “1,000 people [gathered] to give praise to a lawyer.”
Other speakers who paid tribute to Hochman included Gov. Gray Davis and U.S. District Judge Manuel Real.
Real, who worked with Hochman in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the 1950s and has been a family friend ever since, announced that the Legal Services Division has renamed its annual service award the Bruce I. Hochman Maimonides Torch of Justice Award. The jurist presented the renamed award to the attorney’s widow, Harriet Hochman.
The Taxation Section of the State Bar of California has also named an annual award for Hochman, who specialized in representing taxpayers in dispute with the Internal Revenue Service and in criminal tax cases.
Gore’s remarks were preceded by a video presentation on Hochman. Among the friends, colleagues, and former clients who shared their recollections were U.S. District Judges Real and Stephen V. Wilson, television host Monty Hall, architect Frank Gehry, and George Molsbarger, a former bookmaker.
Molsbarger credited Hochman with enabling him to spend his advancing years with his grandchildren instead of in federal prison.
Apart from his comments about Hochman, Gore kept most of his comments on the light side. “I haven’t seen so many lawyers in one place since the last day of the [presidential] campaign,” he quipped.
The former vice president is now a part-time resident of the area, working with a local financial management firm. He is also a visiting professor at UCLA—“that’s v.p. for short, it’s a way of hanging on,” he commented.
He turned serious, however, when talking about the unfolding violence in the Middle East. Gore, who lost the presidential election to George Bush despite receiving more popular votes than any candidate in history, endorsed the president’s peace initiative led by General Anthony Zinni.
He said he was looking forward to seeing the specifics of the peace proposal which Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is to put forth at the upcoming Arab summit. “What the world needs is another [Anwar] Sadat, another King Hussein…another statesman who take this search for a peaceful world to a higher level.”
Sadat, as president of Egypt, and Hussein, as king of Jordan, led their countries to become the only ones in the Arab world to sign peace treaties with Israel.
Sadat shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin as a result of the 1979 treaty, but was assassinated by Islamic extremists in his own country in 1981. Hussein died of natural causes in 1999.
Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company
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Bruce Hochman; Tax Lawyer, Active With Jewish Charities - Los Angeles Times
latimes.com | Elaine Woo Aug. 14, 2001
From <https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-aug-14-me-33918-story.html>
Bruce I. Hochman, a leading California tax attorney who was active in local Jewish philanthropies, died of natural causes Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 72 and a longtime resident of Beverly Hills.
Hochman specialized in civil and criminal tax litigation and disputes for more than four decades as a founder of the Beverly Hills firm now known as Hochman, Salkin, Rettig, Toscher & Perez.
Known for his eloquent speech and ability to simplify complex issues, Hochman was highly regarded in Washington as well as in local and state legal circles.
“He was the dean of tax litigators in Los Angeles,” said U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson, a former law partner.
Hochman was so respected within the Internal Revenue Service that he was often invited to give lectures to its agents, said Wayne McEwan, the former chief of the agency’s criminal investigations division, who worked opposite Hochman for three decades.
“Bruce was as good as his word. If he said these are the facts, you could take it to bank,” McEwan said. “He never played games.”
Hochman handled many high-profile cases, including a ticket-scalping case involving composer Dominic Frontiere, who was accused of concealing income and failing to report taxes on profit he made from scalping 1980 Super Bowl tickets when his wife, Georgia, was owner of the then-Los Angeles Rams.
His clients included mobster Meyer Lansky, major players in the Nevada gaming industry and figures such as Joe Conforte, the legendary Nevada brothel owner who was convicted on tax-evasion charges in the late 1970s despite attempts to bribe a federal judge.
Some of his cases resulted in changes in tax law, including Wiksell vs. Commissioner of Internal Revenue in 1996, which led Congress to pass a law that established the comparative fault of spouses in tax liability cases.
He was a strong supporter of Jewish charities and served as president of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles from 1984 to 1986. He also was regional chairman of the Anti-Defamation League for more than 30 years.
Born in Toronto, he moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA, where he studied as an undergraduate. He was a member of UCLA law school’s inaugural class, graduating in 1952.
After earning his law degree, he enlisted in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the U.S. Air Force, where he handled military justice cases. He worked for three years as a federal prosecutor handling tax cases in Los Angeles before opening his own firm in 1956.
Hochman is survived by his wife of 38 years, Harriet; daughters Nancy and Jennifer; sons, Nathan and David; and eight grandchildren.
A service will be held at 2 p.m. today at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City. Donations may be made to the United Jewish Fund and United Way.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-aug-14-me-33918-story.html
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HOCHMAN, BRUCE I. was born 15 January 1929, received Social Security number 555-44-8811 (indicating California) and, Death Master File says, died 11 August 2001
Source: Death Master File (public domain). Check Archives.com for BRUCE I HOCHMAN. [$]
From <https://sortedbyname.com/letter_h/hochman/index_3.html>