Looks like the founder for Girls Gone Wild and Guys Gone Wild is in trouble again this time for felony tax evasion. In a brief hearing at U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Francis pleaded not guilty to charges that he had deducted more than $20 million in bogus business expenses on his corporate returns during 2002 and 2003, and a trial date was set for Sept. 16 in Los Angeles.
"No matter how much the government pursues me because of what I do for a living, I will be vindicated again because ultimately the truth will come out," Francis said Monday in an interview outside the courtroom.
Francis' attorney, Robert Bernhoft, said a former corporate accountant for Francis' Mantra Films Inc. of Santa Monica and Sands Media Inc. of Nevada prepared tax returns without showing them to Francis. After leaving the companies, Bernhoft said, the accountant contacted the IRS seeking millions of dollars in bonuses for reporting his own "accounting mistakes," under a government whistle-blower provision nicknamed "the rat-out-your-neighbor program."
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