(EDITOR’S NOTE: Monty is a former 3 term mayor of Monterey Park and Darren a former president of Phil-Am Bar Association. Manibog & Manibog, LLP are regular columnists offering legal tips and perspectives in high profile legal cases and events.)
PEOPLE often lie for a variety of reasons, essentially to gain some kind of advantage, to cover up a mistake or wrong doing or just to look good or to impress others. Kids often lie to their parents, teachers and friends for similar reasons. Most lies of this nature are not crimes punishable by law.
However, when you lie in a court of law or under oath, lie to investigating police officers or knowingly file a false police or official report, you could be charged, convicted and dealt a prison sentence. Even lying on a bank loan documents or accepting money from others on the pretext of investment or other profitable venture could amount to “obtaining under false pretenses” (Bernard Madoff case), which is deemed a theft under California law, and lying on your tax return may result in tax fraud or evasion charges with severe penalties.
Some high profile lies that have led to prosecutions and jail sentences are as follows:
“Queen of Mean”, Leona Helmsley, owner of the Empire State Building and the chain of ritzy Helmsley hotels, lied on her tax returns by declaring expensive home furnishings as business expenses for her hotels and ended up in less luxurious accommodations following her conviction on tax fraud/evasion charges.
“Diva of gracious living,” Martha Stewart, was originally questioned in an insider trading investigation after selling her large bloc of ImClone stocks following a tip from the board chairmen that the stocks were about to tank. To cover up, Stewart told investigators that she left long standing instructions with her stock broker to sell the shares when their value reached a certain level. Both Stewart and her stockbroker were subsequently convicted and dealt jail terms for lying in an official investigation. The irony of it all is that if she had been truthful about receiving the inside information, she would have been guilty of nothing because she was not an insider, merely a stockholder who sold on information of the stocks’ imminent collapse from an insider. It was the lying under oath in an official government investigation that snared Stewart.
Perhaps the most prominent and far reaching lies were those that were told to cover up the Nixon administration’s Watergate scandal when some of President Nixon’s top aides burglarized the Democratic campaign headquarters during the 1972 presidential campaign. The burglary itself, which caused no real harm or injury to anyone and nothing of substantial value taken, might have been treated more lightly by the court but it was the lies to cover up the crime that caused Federal Judge Sirica to mete out longer, more severe prison terms to Nixon’s top aides.
Fortunately for President Nixon, his hand picked vice president, Gerald Ford, who assumed the presidency upon Nixon’s resignation, exercised his constitutional, unfettered presidential power to pardon, proceeded to pardon Nixon of all crimes related to the Watergate scandal, avoiding an unprecedented jailing of a president or former president.
And, of course, recently convicted Bernard Madoff cheated investors of billions of dollars by lying about money he took in “under false pretenses and is now serving what amounts to a life term in prison.
These are but a few of the many high profile cases of perjured testimony or lies that have resulted in criminal sanctions. So, before you decide to tell a lie, be sure it’s not under oath, in the course of an official investigation or not geared toward defrauding anyone. Jail is not a pleasant habitat.
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Manibog & Manibog, LLP is an all service law firm particularly handling catastrophic personal injuries and wrongful death cases from vehicular, motorist, and aircraft accidents, business disputes, wills and probate, medical and legal malpractices and bankruptcy, and immigration.
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