It’s cost him $2,642,018 in back taxes and penalties — but a former managing director of Swiss Re has purchased his way out of a threatened prison term for felony tax fraud.
Derivatives trader Llewellyn Connolly, 44, had dodged some $1 million in taxes by filing non-resident New York returns for the years 2007 and 2008, claiming he was single and lived in London. In fact, he lived in the Village with his wife, Manhattan prosecutors said.
Connolly pleaded guilty today to tax fraud, tax evasion and filing false returns, all felonies. He’d faced a maximum prison term of between five and 15 years had he not taken the deal and been convicted of the top charge against him.
He’d been so desperate to beat an audit, that he gave state tax officials fake documents purportedly from two Manhattan hotels he claimed he’d stayed at while on company business, along with bogus moving company records to support his false claim of having moved to Virginia in 2006.
Under today’s deal, he must also serve 300 hours of community service.