Tony Serra loses his license for not paying income taxes

Famed San Francisco defense attorney J. TONY SERRA [#32639], facing a 10-month prison sentence for failing to pay taxes, lost his law license for six months and began two years of probation last month. The pony-tailed lawyer who was the subject of the 1989 film “True Believer” was placed on actual suspension May 5. His prison sentence started May 15.

Serra, 71, pleaded guilty in April 2005 to two misdemeanor counts of willfully failing to pay $44,000 in income taxes for 1998 and 1999, although in fact he hasn’t paid taxes for more than two decades. He was convicted of not paying taxes and was placed on probation in 1985, and in 1974 he served four months in Lompoc federal prison for not paying taxes in protest of the Vietnam War. The bar suspended Serra for a month and put him on five years of probation in 1988 as a result of his second conviction.

In the State Bar proceedings, as well as those in federal court, the testimony about Serra’s good character and good works was extensive. Bar prosecutors noted that Serra eschewed the material benefits of a successful law practice and quoted a promise Serra made at the beginning of his career: “I took an informal vow of poverty. I vowed that I would never take profit from the practice of law, that I would not buy anything new, that I would recycle everything, that I would own no properties — no stocks or bonds, no images of prosperity.”

A bar lawyer wrote that Serra “never abandoned his vow and all who know him can attest to his lifestyle as one who does not seek, nor value, material possessions of success.” At least half his caseload consists of pro bono cases, and he often underwrites those expenses, earning no fees, the bar said.

Nonetheless, a federal magistrate said Serra was not above the law, noting that he hasn’t paid taxes for more than 20 years. “You’re not an exception to the rule of law,” U.S. Magistrate Joseph Spero told Serra last July, when he imposed a sentence of 10 months in federal prison. Spero also ordered Serra to pay $100,000 in restitution to the government, although the IRS has written off much of his tax liability as non-collectable.

Although Serra filed returns for the years 1993-2001, he did not pay any taxes and owes more than half a million dollars, prosecutors said. The returns overstated the amount of taxes owed because they did not include allowable business expense deductions.

His failure to pay the taxes, according to the stipulation he reached with the bar, was the result of Serra’s self-described “dysfunctional relationship with money.”

Serra, famous for wearing hand-me-down suits, driving run-down heaps and sometimes carrying legal documents in paper bags, has represented the late Black Panther leader Huey Newton, members of the Hell’s Angels, former Symbionese Liberation Army soldier Sara Jane Olson and scores of people charged with crimes ranging from dealing drugs to murder. He also was one of a team of lawyers who won a $4.4 million civil award for two Earth First! activists against four FBI agents and three Oakland police officers.

Serra’s prison sentence was delayed because he was representing a defendant in the trial of three men accused of murdering an East Bay transgender teen.

Prosecutors pointed to Serra’s “chronic and willful disregard for the tax laws” and said he “has been candid about his desire to stick a figurative finger in the eye of the Internal Revenue Service.”

At his sentencing, several legal luminaries pleaded that Serra be spared prison time; San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who said he was inspired by Serra to become a public defender, suggested that his sentence include working in a PD office and training young lawyers.

Spero acknowledged that Serra “has selflessly devoted himself to the cause of justice and representation of the underprivileged and has done so with little economic benefit to himself.” In the end, however, the judge ruled, “We are a country of laws.”