U.S. v. Sun Myung Moon 532 F.Supp. 1360 (1982)

By S. D. New York. United States District Court

In this case, Sun Myung Moon was found guilty of willfully filing false federal income tax returns and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. His case generated protests from clergy and civil libertarians, who said that the trial was biased against him. Moon, born in North Korea, a convert to Christianity, had a huge following in the United States after he moved to live there.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 4064066406936

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S. D. New York. United States District Court

U.S. v. Sun Myung Moon 532 F.Supp. 1360 (1982)

Published by Good Press, 2022

[e-mail]

EAN 4064066406936

Table of Contents

OPINION

I. The Tax Counts

A. Legal Sufficiency and the Prosecutor's Instructions

B. The False Source

II. Prosecutorial Misconduct

A. Exculpatory Evidence

B. Separate Grand Juries

C. Perjury Trap

III. Materiality of the Perjury

A. Counts Nine and Ten

B. Counts Twelve and Thirteen

CONCLUSION

SO ORDERED.

See also

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Founder of the Unification Church and one of his advisors were charged with making and subscribing false federal income tax returns, conspiracy to file false returns, and conspiracy to obstruct grand jury investigations. The advisor was also charged with, inter alia, perjury. On defense motions to dismiss, the District Court, Goettel, J., held that: (1) defendant's claim that indictment's tax counts were legally insufficient was mooted by filing of superseding indictment; (2) defendant made no showing that the Government did not make exculpatory information contained in certain affidavits known to the grand jury or, more importantly, that the testimony of those additional witnesses might reasonably have been expected to lead the grand jury not to indict; (3) Government has no threshold obligation, before seeking a perjury indictment, to take reasonable steps to insure that an erroneous answer by a witness is in fact an intentional lie and not merely a mistake or product of faulty memory; and (4) questions and answers relating to defendant's ownership of certain stock and relating to bank accounts in that defendant's name could not be deemed immaterial to grand jury's investigation into whether the defendants had violated federal tax law. Order in accordance with opinion. See also, D.C., --- F.R.D. ---.

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William M. Tendy, Acting U. S. Atty., S. D. N. Y., New York City, Atty. for plaintiff; Jo Ann Harris, Senior Litigation Counsel, Martin Flumenbaum, Asst. U. S. Atty., New York City, of counsel.

Stillman, Friedman & Shaw, New York City, Caplin & Drysdale, Washington, D. C., for defendant Moon; Charles Stillman, Julian Friedman, New York City, Bernard Bailor, Washington, D. C., of counsel.

Andrew M. Lawler, New York City, for defendant Kamiyama.

OPINION

Table of Contents

GOETTEL, District Judge

The Reverend Sun Myung Moon is the founder and spiritual leader of the Unification Church, a church with approximately two million members in 120 countries around the world.[FN1] Takeru Kamiyama is a member of the Unification Church and an advisor to Moon. The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC) is the corporate embodiment of the Unification Church in the United States. HSA-UWC was incorporated in 1961 as a California not-for-profit corporation and was granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue