Don't Go Out of Your Way to Be A Target

From the "if you are ripping of investors left and right, don't flaunt your ill gotten gains on TV" file...

Here is a story about a guy who was rolling in (other people's) dough. He then went on a beyond annoying (but apparently popular with the kids) show on MTV called "My Sweet 16" with his daughter. The premise of this show is to illustrate the extremes of poor parenting as adults scramble to buy anything and everything their rude, obnoxious teens want. Anyway, the feds caught wind of his "buy my daughter everything she wants including a new Beemer before my 15 minutes of fame are up" debut on TV, even though he was bankrupt. Destitute even. At least according to his tax returns...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/30/business/30gas.php
http://gawker.com/373993/brat-teens-party-appropriately-leads-to-federal-investigation

So the moral of the story is to keep a low profile in most all cases--especially if you have reason to hide from the feds.