A promi­nent at­tor­ney has been or­dered to pay al­most $500,000 in fines af­ter plead­ing guilty to ut­ter­ing a forged val­u­a­tion re­port to re­duce the amount of stamp du­ty he was re­quired to pay for a prop­er­ty.

Lal Kr­ish­na Dood­nath, of Igneri Road, Val­sayn, was fined af­ter plead­ing guilty to the of­fence dur­ing a hear­ing be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Deb­by Ann Bas­saw in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates’ Cour­ton Fri­day.

In 2015, Dood­nath, his wife Vidia, and their com­pa­ny Re­gents Park Ltd were charged with at­tempt­ing to de­fraud the Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR) in Sep­tem­ber 2012.

The cou­ple and their com­pa­ny were ac­cused of sub­mit­ting a re­port for a prop­er­ty in West­moor­ings, which was val­ued at $2.75 mil­lion when it, in fact, should have been val­ued at $6.2 mil­lion.

Based on the re­port, the cou­ple paid $112,000 in stamp du­ty as op­posed to $370,750.

Dood­nath was sole­ly charged with ut­ter­ing a forged doc­u­ment.

Dood­nath en­tered in­to a plea agree­ment with the BIR un­der which he agreed to plead guilty to ut­ter­ing a forged val­u­a­tion re­port.

Un­der the agree­ment, the BIR agreed to with­draw the fraud charge against him and his wife.

The charge will re­main against the com­pa­ny, which was com­mit­ted to stand tri­al for it in the High Court.

Dood­nath was fined $2,000 for the of­fence and was or­dered to pay $258,750 to the BIR, which rep­re­sents the stamp du­ty he avoid­ed pay­ing by us­ing the forged val­u­a­tion re­port.

He was al­so or­dered to pay $233,750 in fines, which rep­re­sents the penal­ties on the stamp du­ty be­tween 2012 and 2021.

He was giv­en one month in which to pay the fines.

Dood­nath was rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, and Anil Ma­haraj.

BIR Le­gal Con­sul­tant Evans Welch pros­e­cut­ed the case, which was in­ves­ti­gat­ed by crim­i­nal tax in­ves­ti­ga­tor Adesh Ramdeo.

—Derek Achong