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Beanie Babies creator avoids prison time for tax evasion

Source: foxnews.com - Jan 15, 2014

The billionaire businessman behind Beanie Babies learned Tuesday that he won't go to prison for hiding at least $25 million from U.S. tax authorities, and the judge who gave him two years' probation instead went to great lengths to praise his charitable giving.

H. Ty Warner, one of the highest profile figures snared in a federal investigation of Americans using Swiss bank accounts to avoid U.S. taxes, issued a brief apology before he was sentenced in Chicago federal court. The toymaker, who pleaded guilty to a single count of tax evasion, said he felt "shame and embarrassment" for what he had done.

Warner, 69, could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison, and a prosecutor Michelle Petersen asked U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras to give Warner at least a year behind bars.

Peterson detailed how Warner meticulously hid his income — more than $100 million at one point — by filing false tax returns for at least 11 years, and pointed out that another area businessman caught in the same dragnet, Peter Troost, got a year in prison from another judge in that courthouse for hiding far less — $3 million.

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Category: General Business

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