Milton Grimes, LA attorney who represented Rodney King, gets prison time for tax evasion
Milton C. Grimes, a longtime Los Angeles attorney, was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $7 million in restitution for a case of tax evasion spanning more than two decades.
Between 2002 through 2023, Grimes did not pay federal income taxes for 23 of those years — evading $5,921,260 in taxes, penalties and interest owed to the IRS — and he has admitted to owing more than $1,313,231 in delinquent state taxes to the Franchise Tax Board, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.
The lawyer has been at the center of a number of high-profile cases over his decades-long career. He represented Rodney King in his 1991 lawsuit against the city, Bloomberg reports, a case that drew national headlines when the LA Riots broke out in April 1992 after a jury acquitted four officers in King's beating.
Grimes pleaded guilty in October to one count of tax evasion after being indicted by a federal grand jury in March of last year.
"Despite being a respected attorney, Mr. Grimes also made the deliberate decision to cheat on his taxes for decades, evading the payment of millions of dollars in tax that all citizens are required to pay," Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Joseph T. McNally said in a statement Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors said the IRS began trying to collect Grimes' unpaid taxes in September 2011 by issuing more than 30 levies on his personal bank accounts. However, according to prosecutors, he continued to evade payment of those taxes by not depositing his income into the bank accounts which were subject to levy.
"Instead, Grimes purchased approximately 238 cashier's checks totaling $16 million to keep the money out of the reach of the IRS," reads the statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office. "Grimes would routinely purchase cashier's checks and withdraw cash from his client trust account, his Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts (IOLTA), and his law firm's bank account, rather than pay the IRS."
Currently, the State Bar of California reports Grimes' license to practice remains active, but a consumer alert has been issued stating he has been charged with a felony.
