On August 5, Robert Brockman, a multi-millionaire software developer implicated in the largest single instance of tax evasion in United States history, died in Houston, Texas. The case was one of the most significant in US history. According to various reports, Brockman died at his Houston home at the age of 81.
Since 2020, Brockman has been fighting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allegations of money laundering and tax fraud totaling more than $2 billion. Brockman was a self-taught software entrepreneur who had developed a system that allowed car dealers to conduct their business virtually. Prosecutors allege that Brockman, who had a personal net worth of $4.7 billion, had an $8 million home in Houston, a ski lodge in Colorado, a Bombardier airplane and a 209-foot yacht named “Turmoil.” “.
Kathy Keneally, Brockman’s lead attorney and the person who confirmed his death Saturday, said her client has dementia. Despite his legal team claiming throughout the trial that he was unfit to stand trial, the judge ruled in May that the case would go ahead as planned. During the June hearing, the court scheduled the trial to begin in February 2023.
Who was Robert Brockman?
Brockman was born in Florida, where both his parents were in the medical field. Brockman’s father ran a gas station and his mother was a physical therapist. He is the former Chief Executive Officer of Reynolds & Reynolds, an Ohio-based software company that provides organizations with a variety of solutions. He is also the registrant of dozens of patents. Brockman formed the first Universal Computer Services, Inc. (UCS) in 1970 as a service bureau to provide data processing services to auto dealerships. Its original target market was the automotive industry. His first office was in the living room of his Houston home, and it was there that he taught himself how to program computers. Universal Computer Systems completed the acquisition of Reynolds and Reynolds in August 2006, after which they combined the two companies’ operations under the Reynolds and Reynolds brand names.
In October 2020, the government issued an indictment against him on 39 counts, including charges of tax evasion on a total of $2 billion in revenues, wire fraud and money laundering. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. The Justice Department alleges that the alleged conspiracy to conceal billions of dollars in revenue from before the Internal Revenue Service took place over several decades.
According to Bloomberg, Brockman is left behind by his wife Dorothy, son Robert Brockman II, a brother and two grandchildren. He was married to Dorothy for 53 years.