As secretive as Brockman has been, Smith has embraced the limelight, making high-profile gifts and walking down numerous red carpets. It may have been Smith’s 2014 divorce that piqued the interest of IRS agents. In 2016, Vista received a grand jury subpoena seeking information on its investors, including Brockman’s trust, prosecutors said in a Nov. 10 filing. After learning of the investigation, the government argues, Brockman began planning to feign mental incompetence.
Smith avoided prosecution last year when he admitted evading taxes on $200 million of income, agreed to pay $139 million and to cooperate in the Brockman probe. If Brockman is declared incompetent, Smith will avoid testifying at trial.
While a finding of incompetence would spare Brockman from prison, it may not protect him from civil actions. His 2020 indictment led to his resignation from his firm, Reynolds & Reynolds, abruptly ending his half-century career as a brilliant software engineer and businessman. His family has given millions of dollars to scholarship programs, university capital projects and medical research. Its charitable trust has also amassed a fortune that his wife estimated at $7.7 billion, Bermuda court records show.
To make their cases about Brockman’s competence, both sides will rely on medical testimony and records, as well as other evidence. Brockman’s legal team has brought in new experts unaffiliated with Baylor. One of them, Dr. Marc Agronin, a geriatric psychiatrist at Miami Jewish Health, wrote, “Mr. Brockman is unable to assist counsel in his defense due to his enduring and progressive limitations in multiple cognitive domains.”
This spring, three government-appointed doctors examined Brockman and concluded he has Parkinson’s disease but he’s competent. But after he was twice hospitalized and then re-examined last month, two of them are quoted in the Nov. 10 filing saying he is still competent to stand trial; the third was unable to make a competency determination.
A key player in this drama is Stuart Yudofsky, a renowned neuropsychiatrist and emeritus professor at Baylor whom the government may call to testify. Brockman and Yudofsky have been close friends for at least a decade. In 2011, Brockman directed his family trust to anonymously endow a $25 million neuropsychiatry program at Baylor named in honor of Yudofsky and his wife, Beth, an email message filed in court indicates. Yudofsky also has served as chairman of the scientific advisory board of the Brockman Medical Research Foundation.
Yudofsky has observed Brockman in “intimate personal settings” like fishing trips, excursions on his yacht and jet, and board meetings and dinners, prosecutors wrote.
Yudofsky’s lawyer has said in court filings that, based on his advice, the doctor will assert his constitutional right against self-incrimination and not testify. Judge Hanks ruled that he can only assert such a right at the competency hearing. At that time, the judge could grant Yudofsky immunity and compel him to testify.
“The government suspects that Yudofsky’s refusal is intended, at least in part, to protect his friend from unfavorable testimony,” prosecutors said in court filings.
Prosecutors say that Yudofsky was also well acquainted with Evatt Tamine, the lawyer whose house was raided in Bermuda. Tamine, who is cooperating with prosecutors, worked closely with Brockman to manage his family trust and other offshore entities. In 2017, Tamine warned his boss he was increasingly concerned about scrutiny from U.S. law enforcement.