An Interview with the Indicted: The Unique Client Perspective

By Kevan P. McLaughlin¹

While returning from giving a series of lectures on trading commodities in South Africa and India, Larry R. Williams was whisked off a plane at Sydney airport and thrown into an Australian prison after being indicted for income tax evasion back home. Those and other events, including his trial, are well chronicled in Mr. Williams’ book: Confessions of a Radical Tax Protestor. This article does not rehash those events and the tax protestor movement, but offers Mr. William’s unique perspective on the criminal tax process, and in particular the tax lawyers who assisted him.

Q: Your book, Confessions of a Radical Tax Protester, goes into great detail about the tax protester movement, your experiences, and more, but one of the events that stuck out to me in particular is how the book opens. Specifically, how you were apprehended in Australia seemingly quite surprised. What was that like, especially because you were represented at the time?

A: We were in negotiations, so to be arrested was a shock and a real wake up call. I was represented at that point, but I also think that was one of the frustrating things for the prosecutor — that I had used a lot of lawyers.