Developer, Porn Director Sentenced to Prison for Tax Fraud

A Calabasas-based developer was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for faking tax returns and failing to disclose almost $6.9 million in income on the returns.

Along with the prison time, developer Mark Handel was also fined $20,000 and ordered to forfeit about $3.6 million, which represents the proceeds of the sale of real estate in Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to a Nov. 14 announcement from the Department of Justice.

U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II sentenced Handel. Wright ordered the developer to pay the Internal Revenue Service more than $1.6 million in outstanding tax liabilities, including penalties and interest.

The developer had pleaded guilty on Feb. 23 to one count of making a false statement in bankruptcy and one count of submitting to a false tax return.

Handel concealed his income from his creditors by depositing it into accounts for his company DTMM, which stood for “Don’t Touch My Money.”

“[Handel’s] crimes were not born out of desperation, nor done on a whim without much thought,” prosecutors asserted in a sentencing memorandum. “His crimes required planning, calculation and an almost insatiable drive to break the law time and time again. Indeed, given the brazenness of his conduct, including bragging to others that his company stood for ‘Don’t Touch My Money,’ [Handel] believed he was above the law.”

Assets Handel hid from creditors included his interest in real estate in Alameda County, which later was sold for about $3.5 million, the proceeds of which he agreed to forfeit.

Handel has bought, sold and developed both commercial and residential real estate for more than 30 years. In Tujunga, he worked to build 229 single-family homes on the Verdugo Hills Golf Course.

The disgraced developer also moonlighted as a porn director, and had developed a reputation for cruelty, said filmmaker Lucas Heyne, who was developing a movie on Handel.

“He was known for being one of the most verbally abusive and physically abusive porn directors that has ever existed,” Heyne told Daily Beast.