Businessman Who Hid Assets Gets 30-Month Prison Term

A former Sherman Oaks businessman who hid $1.7 million in a Swiss bank account, then filed bankruptcy to avoid paying his creditors, including his wife, was sentenced Monday to 30 months in federal prison.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Angela J. Davis said the sentence was “exactly what we wanted” and said she was pleased that Judge Harry L. Hupp had denied defense requests for a lighter sentence.

Robert David Masket, 47, pleaded guilty in May to three felonies: making a false declaration under penalty of perjury in his bankruptcy case, knowingly and fraudulently concealing a bank account from the bankruptcy estate, and lying under oath during bankruptcy proceedings.

When Masket filed for bankruptcy in 1994, he said he owned $6.25 million in Los Angeles-area real estate, a partnership interest worth $1 million and a 41-foot fishing boat worth $290,000, according to prosecutors.

But Masket made no mention of an account that he had opened three months earlier at the Los Angeles branch of Credit Suisse of Zurich, according to prosecutors.

A tipster told the bankruptcy case trustee about the Credit Suisse account, prosecutors said, triggering a criminal investigation.

Masket was arrested in December in Ensenada, Mexico, and extradited to the U.S. He is currently battling the bankruptcy trustee in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, prosecutors said.

The trustee has hired Swiss attorneys who have so far seized $1.6 million from the Swiss account.