BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- The author of 'The Happy Hooker' and 'The French Connection' has been placed on five years probation and fined $5,000 for his role in a tax shelter scheme, federal court officials said Thursday.
Robin Moore, 64, of Westport, who also wrote 'The Green Berets,' also received a suspended sentence of five years in prison and was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service work, court officials said.
Moore pleaded guilty three years ago before U.S. District Judge T.F. Gilroy Daly to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government out of tax dollars.
In passing sentence Wednesday, Daly said he had no intention of sending Moore to prison for what he hoped was 'some sort of passing lapse of judgment.'
Moore, who has been cooperating with authorities, was involved in a tax shelter scheme that at its height included nearly 1,000 people in several states, including Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York, federal prosecutors said.
Moore's cooperation helped authorities convict several others in the scheme, including Edward Reisdorf, 47, of Chatham, N.J., a lawyer and former owner of a professional woman's basketball team; William Chipman, former owner of the now-defunct Hartford Hellions indoor soccer team; and Joe Henry Hodges, a Texas lawyer and the subject of Moore's book on compulsive gambling, prosecutors said.
Another alleged player in the scheme, Frederick Sturges, a former Darien magazine executive, avoided arrest and is believed to be in Mexico, authorities said.
Under the scheme a limited partnership was established and all rights to books authored or co-authored by Moore were obtained. An appraiser then estimated the book's potential earnings from sales and film rights, authorities said.
Investors were then allowed to buy into the partnership by putting up cash equal to 20 percent of the book's appraised value and signing non-recourse notes for the remaining 80 percent. The participants then deducted the cash and the note on their tax returns.
Federal prosecutors claimed the books were assessed at prices far exceeding the fair market value and said some books ended up in a warehouse rather than being put into distribution.
