Robert Brockman, who constructed a billion-dollar fortune as a software program entrepreneur and investor earlier than being indicted in a tax evasion case, has died. He was 81 years previous.
Robert Brockman, who constructed a billion-dollar fortune as a software program entrepreneur and investor earlier than being indicted in a tax evasion case, has died. He was 81 years previous.
Brockman, who suffered from dementia and was receiving residence care, died Friday night time, stated Kathy Keneally, his lawyer. He has been combating tax evasion prices since 2020, however his attorneys stated his dementia meant he was not competent to face trial.
A choose dominated in Could that Brockman was competent. At a listening to a month later, the choose tentatively set his trial date for February 23, 2023. Brockman appeared in mattress through video throughout that listening to.
“The federal government wasted time and sources charging a person who had progressive dementia and was terminally in poor health,” Keneally stated.
As a younger man, Brockman was often known as a tireless employee with a ardour for health, fly fishing in Colorado and dove looking in Argentina. Forbes estimated his internet value at $four.7 billion.
A Florida native of humble beginnings, Brockman bought computing providers to auto sellers beneath the identify Worldwide Enterprise Machines Corp. when in 1970 he based an organization that helped revolutionize the way in which the trade operated in North America and Europe.
Brockman, a self-taught programmer, developed a software program system that helped automobile sellers handle just about each side of their operations. He obtained greater than a dozen patents and grew his software program firm, Reynolds & Reynolds, right into a 5,000-person operation value about $5 billion.
As Brockman constructed his agency into an industrial power, he additionally defended quite a few lawsuits accusing him of cut-throat enterprise practices. The salespeople accused his firm of gouging them about funds; Automobile sellers stated he duped them into costly multi-year contracts. The Federal Commerce Fee investigated whether or not it engaged in anticompetitive practices.
A former Marine reservist who surrounded himself with loyal lieutenants, Brockman had an intense want for private privateness, which prolonged to his dealings with the Inside Income Service.
“Brockman had one rule: Do not do enterprise with the federal government,” stated Robert Tyson, a contractor who gained a lawsuit in opposition to Brockman for unpaid compensation for providers rendered. “He did not need the feds taking a look at something.”
In October 2020, the US indicted Brockman within the largest tax evasion case in opposition to a person, in addition to cash laundering prices.
Burning telephones
Brockman helped launch the non-public fairness profession of Robert F. Smith, America’s richest black citizen, by offering the seed funding in his agency, Vista Fairness Companions. Prosecutors alleged that Brockman used a community of offshore entities, code names and telephones to cover $2 billion in revenue from the IRS, most of it earned by Vista investments.
Smith admitted to tax crimes however prevented prosecution by cooperating with prosecutors in opposition to Brockman.
The case in opposition to Brockman hinged on whether or not billions of dollars in an offshore charitable belief have been secretly managed by him, as prosecutors alleged, or independently managed, as he claimed. Prosecutors stated he used untaxed earnings from offshore entities to purchase a Colorado fishing lodge, a personal jet and a 200-foot yacht, which his attorneys denied.
“I’ve not seen this sample of greed or concealment and cover-up in my 25-plus years as a particular agent,” James Lee, an IRS official, stated when the fees have been filed.
Brockman pleaded not responsible, however his attorneys quickly started arguing that his dementia left him unable to help in his protection.
Robert Theron Brockman was born in St. Petersburg, Florida on Could 28, 1941. His father, Alfred Eugene Brockman, owned a gasoline station. His mom, Pearl, was a bodily therapist. With the household struggling financially, Brockman “determined he did not prefer it and went out to make one thing of himself,” his youthful brother David advised the Wall Road Journal in 2021.
Sown Vista
After graduating summa cum laude from the College of Florida in 1963, Brockman labored as a advertising and marketing intern at Ford Motor Co. earlier than shifting to IBM the place he turned a prime salesman in Washington and Houston. In 1970, he shaped his personal agency, Common Pc Methods, and commenced offering auto sellers with weekly stock studies, Auto Information reported.
As Brockman constructed his firm, he met Smith, then a Goldman Sachs know-how funding banker. Brockman later floated Smith’s agency, Vista, with no less than $1 billion in funds to purchase enterprise software program companies. The association was structured to maintain earnings offshore, prosecutors say.
In 2006, Brockman introduced his software program and funding pursuits collectively to engineer the acquisition that propelled UCS into the large leagues. Brockman’s close-knit agency purchased Reynolds & Reynolds, a public firm practically twice its measurement. A part of the fairness financing got here from Vista’s authentic fund, wherein Brockman was the only outdoors investor.
The mixed agency took the identify Reynolds & Reynolds and was managed by a Bermudian charitable belief arrange within the identify of Brockman’s father. As Brockman’s fortune grew, so did the belief’s offshore property.
Along with the $5 billion in software program firms, they included $1.three billion in investments made by an entity primarily based within the British Virgin Islands and $1.four billion in a Swiss financial institution, the spouse stated sa, Dorothy, in an affidavit filed in a Bermudian court docket. .
Help for Opera
The Bermudian Belief and Brockman additionally turned energetic philanthropists. Their items included tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Baylor School of Medication, the place Brockman was a trustee, and the Brockman Corridor for Opera at Rice College in Houston. In addition they supported dozens of scholars with scholarships.
Nevertheless, in 2018, US tax authorities raided Brockman’s attorneys in Houston and Bermuda. They found a cache of encrypted paperwork and messages that prosecutors used to construct their legal case in opposition to Brockman.
Final yr, the IRS assessed Brockman for $1.four billion in taxes it stated he owed from 2004 to 2018. In January, he sued the US to cease the company’s rapid evaluation of this tax. Just a few days later, he filed a separate lawsuit within the Tax Courtroom. Whereas his legal document will finish, the IRS battle in opposition to his property may drag on for years.
“If Bob Brockman truly owed extra tax, which we’re disputing, that may await a Tax Courtroom choice,” Keneally stated.
He’s survived by his brother David; his spouse of 53 years, Dorothy; a son, Robert Brockman II; a daughter-in-law; a nephew; and a niece.
