Tax crimes (Photo: Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock.com)

After finishing a two-year prison sentence for tax evasion earlier this year, Harold Levine, a former senior tax lawyer at Herrick Feinstein and Moritt Hock & Hamroff, has resigned from the New York state bar.

A decision to accept the resignation was released by the Appellate Division, First Department on Thursday and made retroactive to Aug. 22. Levine, who was released from federal prison in April, had previously mounted a successful defense to the Attorney Grievance Committee's efforts to have him automatically disbarred.

Levine submitted "an affidavit in which he acknowledges his guilty plea, his sentence and his actions which led to his convictions," the decision reads. "He attests that he cannot defend himself against the allegations."

Hal Lieberman, a partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady who represented Levine, declined to comment. Contact information for Levine could not be found.

Levine's legal troubles began after the federal government filed a civil suit against him in 2014 for allegedly perpetrating a scheme that generated $5 million in fees and cost the government $129 million in foregone tax payments.

At the time, Moritt Hock said it stood by Levine and noted that most of the allegations concerned his time at Herrick. Herrick, in turn, said Levine had gone "rogue." The firm said it had reported his misconduct and cooperated with federal authorities.

Levine was criminally charged in 2016, but the charges didn't strictly relate to the tax shelter allegations. According to prosecutors, Levine and a Florida accountant diverted millions in fees to entities they controlled and didn't report those sums on their tax returns.

Prosecutors further alleged that Levine used some of the money to buy a Long Island home for a woman at Herrick with whom he had a "close personal relationship" and instructed her to lie to the IRS and say she had been paying $1,000 a month in cash to rent it.

Levine struck a plea deal and was sentenced to two years behind bars and three years of supervised release. He was released in April 2019, federal prison records indicate, and under the terms of his sentence he is to pay 15% of his gross monthly income to the government until his $1.5 million restitution obligation is complete.

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