Before he was sentenced this week to 18 months in federal prison, disgraced lawyer Gary Stern listened to former National Football League linebacker Adalius Thomas tell a federal judge in Chicago how Stern’s shoddy tax-saving advice instead ruined his credit and landed him a nearly $1 million fine from the IRS.
Stern, a former equity partner at Chicago’s Chuhak & Tecson, pleaded guilty last year to preparing false tax returns related to an alternative energy tax-credit fraud that a grand jury indictment said led 34 of his clients, including nearly 20 NFL players, to falsely shave nearly $5 million in tax bills between 2005 and 2007.
