Robert Brockman, the software executive charged in the largest-ever tax case against a U.S. individual, is facing progressive dementia that will render him unable to help in his defense, according to a legal filing citing his doctors.
Brockman, 79, was indicted on tax evasion and money laundering charges that accused him of using a complex trust structure in the Caribbean to hide $2 billion in income over two decades. His lawyers want his case moved from San Francisco, where he was indicted on Oct. 1, to Houston, where he lives and his doctors treat him.
In a filing late Monday, physician James L. Pool said Brockman has symptoms consistent with Parkinson’s disease, parkinsonism, Lewy body dementia, or some combination of them. The diagnosis can only be “totally confirmed” with an autopsy, but each results in rigid muscles, slow movements and tremors, according to Pool, a pharmacology professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
“All are characterized by progressive dementia, and in Mr. Brockman’s case, the medical reports confirm cognitive impairment, which includes, but is not limited to, both short and long-term memory loss,” according to Pool’s declaration.
Brockman’s condition renders his “long-term memory inaccessible and defective,” according to the filing. “For these reasons, I concur with the medical position that Mr. Brockman cannot assist his attorneys in his defense.”
U.S. District Judge William Alsup will hold a hearing Tuesday to consider Brockman’s request to move his case to Houston. Brockman’s lawyers have also said they’ll seek a competency hearing for their client. The Justice Department can present its own medical experts to refute Brockman’s claims. Alsup had directed defense lawyers to file their papers on his competency by Dec. 8.
Prosecutors have said they oppose a venue change. A spokesman for the Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment on the Monday filing by Brockman’s legal team.
Brockman, the former chief executive officer of Reynolds & Reynolds Co., a maker of software for auto dealers, has pleaded not guilty. He was the first investor two decades ago in billionaire Robert Smith’s initial private equity fund, eventually putting up $1 billion.
Smith, the chief executive officer of Vista Equity Partners, avoided prosecution after agreeing to cooperate against Brockman. Smith admitted in a non-prosecution agreement that he evaded $43 million in taxes from 2005 through 2014. Both men hid money from the Internal Revenue Service by using Swiss bank accounts and secretive Caribbean trust structures initially set up by the same Houston lawyer, according to prosecutors.
Another witness against Brockman is Evatt Tamine, an Australian lawyer who worked with him in Bermuda. The filing on Monday included an October 2018 immunity agreement in which Tamine promised to cooperate against Brockman and Smith.
Prosecutors are expected to oppose the claim by Brockman’s lawyers that he isn’t competent to stand trial, and the legal burden for establishing that is high. Last month, Geneva prosecutors froze over $1 billion that Brockman held in Swiss bank accounts.
In their filing, Brockman’s lawyers said that three doctors affiliated with Baylor have confirmed Pool’s findings about his medical condition. Each will testify in a hearing to determine whether Brockman is capable of assisting in his defense, according to the filing.
Defense lawyers will call other witnesses, including his wife and colleagues, to establish that Brockman has “demonstrable cognitive and memory challenges,” according to a filing by one of his attorneys, Kathryn Keneally.
In her filing, Keneally said she gave copies of letters and correspondence from Pool and the three other doctors to prosecutors on April 9, or nearly six months before Brockman was indicted. Defense lawyers encouraged the government to “investigate these medical opinions by providing the necessary waivers from Mr. Brockman (since revoked post-indictment) to allow the prosecutors to contact the physicians separately, without participation by the defense.” Prosecutors didn’t contact any of the doctors before the indictment, Keneally said.
Brockman didn’t resign as CEO of Reynolds & Reynolds until Nov. 6, or several weeks after the indictment. He was succeeded by Tommy Barras, who joined the company in 1976.
Brockman, a onetime IBM salesman who goes by Bob, founded his own software company, Universal Computer Services Inc., 50 years ago. It merged with a larger rival, Reynolds & Reynolds, and is now a $1 billion operation based in Dayton, Ohio.
At a court hearing on Nov. 17, defense lawyer Neal Stephens said the case against Brockman involves 22 million pages of documents. The judge, who has set a trial date of next Nov. 15, said he was considering a venue change even before reading all the legal filings on the question.
At that hearing, Brockman’s lawyers didn’t address the question of his competency. Rather, they said the government’s indictment didn’t show that Brockman filed his tax returns in the Northern District of California. Alsup said the rising coronavirus pandemic could force a slowdown in trials.
“I’m sure the government wouldn’t mind trying this case in Houston, Texas,” Alsup said. “They got fair-minded jurors down there, just like they do here. So it might be better if Mr. Brockman did want a speedy trial. Now, if he does not want a speedy trial, then all this is really just delay. Delay city. And I don’t care for that.”
With assistance from Neil Weinberg.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
