Ex-Valley Businessman Admits Bankruptcy Fraud

A former Sherman Oaks businessman pleaded guilty Monday in a bankruptcy fraud case that began when he was accused of secreting $1.7 million into a bank account to avoid paying creditors, including his former wife.

During a hearing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Robert David Masket, 47, pleaded guilty to three felonies: making a false declaration under penalty of perjury in his bankruptcy case, knowingly and fraudulently concealing a bank account from the bankruptcy estate, and lying under oath during bankruptcy proceedings.

He could face as much as three years in federal prison and $750,000 in fines at sentencing, scheduled for Sept. 13 before Judge Harry L. Hupp.

“By pleading guilty, he is accepting responsibility and expresses remorse for his conduct,” Masket’s defense lawyer, Brian Hennigan, said Tuesday.

He added that Masket, who owned and managed commercial property for a living, intends to pay off all his debts. Hennigan also said his client had filed for bankruptcy as a last resort in the wake of an expensive divorce.

Masket, who was a fugitive from January 1995 until his December arrest in Mexico, is being held in a federal holding facility in downtown L.A.

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According to Assistant U.S. Atty. Angela J. Davis, who is prosecuting the case, Masket filed for bankruptcy in early 1994. In papers filed with his bankruptcy petition, he reported assets including more than $6 million in Los Angeles-area real estate, a $1 million business partnership, a 41-foot fishing boat worth $290,000 and $250 in a checking account.

But no mention was made of an account he had opened three months earlier at the Los Angeles branch of the Credit Suisse of Zurich, Davis said.

A tipster alerted the bankruptcy case trustee to the existence of the Credit Suisse account, Davis said, opening a criminal investigation.

By that time, according to Hennigan’s account, Masket had already been declared a fugitive for failing to appear for a bankruptcy court hearing.

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He was indicted on bankruptcy fraud charges in December and arrested a few days later in Ensenada, Mexico, according to Davis. He was held in a Mexican jail until March 24, then extradited to the United States.

Davis declined to identify the tipster, but Hennigan said it was Masket’s former wife.

A Swiss lawyer hired by the bankruptcy trustee has since seized $1.6 million from the account, Davis said, and Masket’s fishing boat was also repossessed in Mexico late last year. He still owes 58 creditors in the unresolved bankruptcy case a total of $6 million, Davis said, including $1.8 million claimed by his former wife.