Billionaire’s Lawyer Died by Suicide on Eve of His Tax Trial (1)

A Houston lawyer’s death a day before he was to go on trial for allegedly helping billionaire Robert F. Smith evade taxes was a suicide, according to a medical examiner’s report.

Carlos Kepke died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, in a bedroom at his home on Sunday, according to the website of the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.

Kepke, who was 83, was scheduled to begin his trial Monday in San Francisco federal court on charges of conspiring to defraud the US Internal Revenue Service and aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns by ...