A motivational speaker who earned more than a million dollars while living in Wisconsin between 2005 and 2008 has pled guilty to tax fraud charges for laundering his earnings through a church based in Utah.
Eric Plantenberg is the co-founder of three self-help organizations that sponsored workshops around the world to train people how to tap their own brain power to become financially successful.
“Remember what Mother Theresa said,” says Planenberg in a 2012 TED Talk. “‘Start and help one person at a time and start with the person nearest you.’ Well, sometimes the person nearest you needs to be you.”
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According to court documents, Plantenberg didn’t file tax returns on $1.3 million he earned from his business and instead funneled much of it through the Church of Compassionate Services in Utah. Plantenberg left the church in 2010 when a federal judge ordered church leaders to stop telling its members they didn’t have to file taxes if they gave their money to the church.
During the years he did not file taxes, he bought a $440,000 home in Bend, Ore. and a $180,000 lot on a golf course in Argentina. During the same period, he also took business trips to Europe, Asia and South America.
He will be sentenced in federal court in Madison in July. He faces a possible three years in prison and $300,000 in fines. One of the businesses he helped found, Freedom Personal Development, is still operating in Madison.
Check out a video of Plantenberg’s TED Talk below:
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