A jury in South Florida has acquitted a former top executive at Swiss bank UBS AG on charges of helping wealthy Americans hide billions of dollars in secret accounts from the Internal Revenue Service.
The jury deliberated just over an hour before reaching its verdict Tuesday in the case of Raoul Weil. He had faced up to five years in prison and $250,000 fine if convicted of a count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.
Several former UBS bankers testified that Weil was deeply involved in hiding $20 billion in U.S. taxpayer assets from the IRS. Weil did not testify, but his attorneys blamed wrongdoing on lower-ranking bankers acting without Weil's knowledge.
Weil is the highest-ranking Swiss banker prosecuted by the U.S. in its crackdown on offshore tax evasion.
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