Search Articles
LOS ANGELES (CN) — A longtime Los Angeles lawyer who represented the late Rodney King in the wake of his notorious 1991 beating by LA police officers pleaded guilty Tuesday to evading payment of more than $4 million in federal income taxes over two decades.
Milton Grimes, 79, pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion, admitting that in 2014 he failed to pay $1.7 million to the IRS, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in LA.
Between 2002 and 2023, the attorney failed to pay total of $4.1 million he owed to the IRS, including the $1.7 million for 2014, according to his plea deal.
Although the maximum sentence for one count of tax evasion is five years in prison, prosecutors have agreed to seek no more than 22 months at Grimes’ sentencing hearing in February.
To avoid more than 30 levies the IRS issued on his personal bank accounts since 2011, Grimes didn’t deposit the money he made as a lawyer in his private bank accounts. Rather, he deposited the payments in his law firm’s business accounts and purchased cashier checks from those accounts.
In total, he purchased about 238 cashier’s checks totaling $16 million to keep the money out of the reach of the IRS.
“Today, through his guilty plea, Mr. Grimes acknowledged that he failed his legal duty to pay tax,” said his attorney Marilyn Bednarski. “The legacy of his life and career is told in the lives of the countless people he has elevated.”
Grimes helped Rodney King win a $3.8 million verdict against the City of LA over the vicious beating the Black motorist endured by police when they pulled him over after a high speed pursuit in the early hours of March 3, 1991. A nearby resident videotaped the assault from his balcony, sparking an outcry over the relentless violence used by police after it was shown on the local news.
The next year, a jury in Simi Valley failed to convict the four police officers charged with assault and excessive four. Within hours of the verdict, riots broke in LA that lasted for six days and resulted in 63 deaths, 2,383 injuries, more than 7,000 fires, damage to 3,100 businesses and nearly $1 billion in financial losses.
Follow @edpetterssonSubscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.