- 27 -
decided not to call him. The Court questioned counsel in this
matter because of petitioner’s specific reliance on his
relationship with Becker. However, petitioner’s obviously well-
prepared and capable counsel adhered to his decision not to call
upon Becker concerning the supposedly special relationship but,
instead, to rely upon Becker’s extensive testimony in the Jaroff
case.10 See Bresler v. Commissioner, 65 T.C. 182, 188 (1975),
Pollack v. Commissioner, 47 T.C. 92, 108 (1966), affd. 392 F.2d
409 (5th Cir. 1968), and Wichita Terminal Elevator Co. v.
Commissioner, 6 T.C. 1158, 1165 (1946), affd. 162 F.2d 513 (10th
Cir. 1947), to the effect that the failure of a party to offer
10 The colloquy concerning petitioner’s counsel’s failure
to provide Becker’s testimony about his close relationship with
petitioner and Cohen is as follows:
THE COURT: I didn’t hear you mention Mr. Becker’s name
as a witness.
MR. RIZEK: We are not going to call Mr. Becker as an
additional witness. I think the 300 pages or so that
we stipulated to in the supplemental stipulation are
more than adequate to cover any points we wanted to
establish with Mr. Becker.
THE COURT: Well, that may be, but you’re going to talk
a lot about how these parties all had a relationship
with Mr. Becker and all that sort of thing and you’re
not calling Mr. Becker?
MR. RIZEK: We are not calling Mr. Becker. We don’t
think it’s necessary, Your Honor. I don’t think
there’s going to be any doubt at the conclusion of the
evidence that’s presented here that these Petitioners
had fairly long standing relationships independent of
this particular transaction with Mr. Becker.
Page: Previous 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011