Rapper Ja Rule’s best buds behind bars: Disgraced rich guys

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Outside, you don’t meet guys like this every day. This place is amazing.
Rapper Ja Rule • Discussing his time in prison, where he’s in the middle of a two-year prison sentence for gun possession and tax evasion. The “guys like this” he’s referring to are disgraced Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski and Alan Hevesi, a New York state politician who went to jail over a “pay to play” scheme involving the New York state pension system. Ja Rule, who will be releasing an album later this month despite his prison sentence, has been working on taking college-level courses behind bars after getting encouragement from Hevesi and Kozlowski to pursue higher education. “It’s funny,” the rapper said. “We’re from totally different walks of life. But when you’re here, you’re here.” source

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06 Nov 2011 21:21

$2.4M the size of the fine China gave to firebrand artist Ai Weiwei — to be paid in just 15 days
20k number of people who have offered Weiwei donations to help pay this insane tax bill
$550k amount of money these people have given the artist in just five days; impressive source

» This on top of a long arrest earlier this year: Ai Weiwei spent 81 days in jail on tax evasion charges, but claims all authorities wanted to talk about was his pro-democracy record. The fine Ai has been forced to pay is more than three times the size of his tax bill — and he needs help paying. The surprising part is that he actually got said help. “It’s surprising; it has really changed my perspective on people,” he said, noting that people traveled long distances to give him financial help — in person. Ai prefers to think of the payments as loans, and turned down a $157,000 payment from a businessman, saying he preferred smaller loans.

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

If I’m a tax evader, which I’m not, I must be the dumbest one in the world because they gave me five years notice that they have seized every piece of paper that my tax advisors and lawyers and accountants have ever had. I kept coming back here.
Paul “You Call That a Knife” Hogan • On being stuck in the country that made him famous due to insane tax issues. See, Hogan can’t afford to pay even 10 percent of them due to his status as a washed-up movie star. But now he’s stuck in Australia after they forced him to stay in the country after he returned for his mother’s funeral. Hogan, 70, hasn’t worked much in the last few years. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

The clients are not just harmless victims. They knew what they wanted to evade. But they trusted the bank that it would work. Now we have to correct that.
UBS chairman Kaspar Villiger • Describing the clients that they just had to rat out to the U.S. government for hiding their income in Swiss bank accounts to avoid taxes. While they transferred their information to the U.S., they claim no responsibility to actually make sure those clients actually pay taxes. • source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 7 Comments • Permalink