Girls Gone Wild Guru Francis Sues Ex-Accountant

Fri., Jul. 25, 2008 2:32 PM PDT by Josh Grossberg

Krista Kennell/ZUMA Press

Joe Francis is going wild on his former accountant.

The boob-obsessed Girls Gone Wild mogul has sued the former bookkeeper of his Mantra Films, whose blabbing to the feds led them to hammer Francis with a tax-dodging case.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, accuses Michael Barrett of fraud for allegedly creating and preparing tax ledgers that the CPA personally reviewed and approved that contained various errors.

The suit claims that instead of alerting Francis or outside bean counters to the mistakes, Barrett instead contacted the Internal Revenue Service to collect a multimillion-dollar reward the agency offers for informing on would-be tax cheats.

"While Barrett was secretly trying to get Francis investigated by the Reno [Nevada] division of the IRS to recover his bounty from the mistaken books he previously prepared, provided and vouched for to Francis' tax return preparers, he never disclosed any problem to Francis," the complaint states.

"Francis...was never told by Barrett there were mistakes in the books and records, and did not know until after the indictment about Barrett's conduct."

Robert Bernhoft, an attorney for the soft-core purveyor, blasted the feds for a faulty system that allowed his client to get into this situation in the first place.

"IRS informant rules permit a CPA who actually plans and initiates the tax return mistakes to still collect the tax informant reward, which in this case could go as high as $10 million," the lawyer says.

"If the case goes criminal, the tax rat gets even more. Outraged American taxpayers should demand an immediate end to this IRS Gone Wild program."

Citing unjust enrichment and negligence, among other allegations, the suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

On Monday, the 35-year-old Francis pleaded not guilty in L.A. federal court to two felony counts of tax evasion for allegedly deducting more than $20 million in bogus business expenses on his 2002 and 2003 tax returns.

Francis is free on $1.5 million bond, and a tentative trial date is set for Sept. 16. If convicted, he could face a maximum 10-year prison term and $500,000 in fines, but he would likely get a lesser sentence.