-10-
Court of Appeals deals with the question of whether the acquittal
of individuals in their previous mail fraud trial collaterally
estops the Government from litigating certain charges in these
individuals’ conspiracy case. The Court of Appeals concluded
that the earlier acquittals could have been based on any of
several possible determinations by the jury, that some of these
possible determinations were not issues in the second case, and
that thus the individuals had not shown the identity of issues
necessary to invoke collateral estoppel. Crooks does not deal
with the question of whether a conviction of a shareholder can
collaterally estop the corporation, and so Crooks does not help
us as to the issue now before us.
In Ross v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1988-283, we held that
the individuals who were convicted in the earlier proceeding were
collaterally estopped to deny the acts of which they had been
convicted. However, in Ross the collateral estoppel applied to
the later cases in which the convicted individuals were the
taxpayers. In the instant case, Anthony had been convicted, but
Forkston Fireworks Mfg. Co. is the taxpayer. Ross is consistent
with our conclusion in Donnora v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1998-
187, but does not help us reach a conclusion in the instant case.
In Sparks Nugget, Inc. v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1970-74,
affd. 458 F.2d 631, 639 (9th Cir. 1972), a shareholder of a
corporation was held to be collaterally estopped to deny the
correctness of an earlier case’s determination against the
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