Florida court hearing for ex-UBS banker canceled
MIAMI, June 5 (Reuters) - A court hearing for a former UBS AG (UBSN.VX) banker expected to enter a guilty plea next week for his alleged role in a U.S. tax-evasion scheme has been canceled, authorities said on Thursday.
An advisory from the Miami-based U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida said the plea hearing set for Monday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale had been called off at the request of U.S. prosecutors.
No new date was set, it said, adding that the U.S. Attorney's Office would have no further comment.
A lawyer for the former UBS banker, Bradley Birkenfeld, could not be reached for comment. But when he scheduled the hearing just last week, U.S. District Court Judge William Zloch said he would ask for "a full confession" from Birkenfeld, who had pleaded not guilty previously.
In an indictment unsealed last month, Birkenfeld and co-defendant Mario Staggl were charged with conspiring to defraud the United States and helping an unidentified U.S. billionaire real estate developer to hide $200 million in assets from tax authorities.
Citing people familiar with the situation, the Wall Street Journal reported on May 29 that Birkenfeld was expected to provide the Justice Department with the names of a number of wealthy Americans who used UBS to avoid paying taxes.
The Swiss bank would not comment on the report but it has said the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission were investigating its conduct in relation to cross-border services provided by UBS advisers to U.S. clients from 2000 to 2007.
(Reporting by Tom Brown, editing by Phil Berlowitz)
