By Ameet Sachdev |
A Chicago attorney was found guilty Wednesday of conspiracy related to
the sale of tax shelters sold by his former employer.

John Ohle, 42, of Wilmette, also was found guilty of two counts of tax
evasion for failure to report millions of dollars he embezzled from a
trust and fraudulent tax shelter deductions. The conviction came after a
three-week trial in New York.

Ohle faces a maximum of five years in prison on the conspiracy charge and five years on each tax charge. He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 9.

Ohle started selling the tax shelters while he was employed at Chicago-based Bank One between 1999 and 2002, before it was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co. The shelter was called Homer, for the character in “The Simpsons.”

He was part of a scheme to fraudulently obtain referral fees. Louisiana attorney William Bradley also was convicted on the conspiracy charge.

The shelters were aimed at wealthy clients of the bank and Jenkens & Gilchrist, a national law firm that went out of business in 2007 after settling civil and criminal investigations related to the bogus tax shelters. Ohle continued selling the shelters after leaving the bank and forming his own company, Chicago-based Dumaine Group LLC.