United States v. Albert M. Lefkowitz

Lefkowitz appeals from his convictions for various tax fraud offenses. He challenges the validity of the search warrants issued to search his home and his corporate offices, focusing on the failure of the supporting affidavit to disclose the identity of the IRS’s secret informant: his estranged wife Helen. This failure, he says, prevented the magistrate from exercising an informed, independent judgment in issuing the warrants and renders the affidavit insufficient to support a finding of probable cause. He further argues that the privilege against adverse spousal testimony or the confidential marital communications privilege prohibits the use of his wife as an informant. We affirm.

I. Statement of the Case

Lefkowitz was convicted after a bench trial on stipulated facts of violating 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 1001 and 26 U.S.C. §§ 7201 , 7203 and 7206(1). He was sentenced to four years imprisonment and placed on three years probation to begin after his prison term.

Lefkowitz was the president of several related small corporations, most of them in the car rental/leasing business. On June 12, 1975, IRS agents went to the Lefkowitz corporate offices, told Lefkowitz that he and his…