Agoura Hills Developer Sentenced To 41 Months In Prison For Fraud

AGOURA HILLS — An Agoura Hills-based real estate developer was sentenced Tuesday to 41 months in federal prison for federal bankruptcy and tax fraud charges, which comes as a documentarian is working on a film about the developer's moonlighting as the "boogeyman of porn."

Mark Handel, 68, pleaded guilty in February to failing to disclose on a bankruptcy petition that he had earned nearly $2.3 million in income and for failing to report almost $6.9 million in income on his tax returns, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

While the federal charges concern Handel's real estate business, The Daily Beast last year reported that the developer also has a parallel career as "one of the most notorious and misogynistic figures in hardcore porn" under the pseudonym Khan Tusion.

That's the subject of an in-the-works film from director Lucas Heyne, The Daily Beast reported.

A judge fined Handel $20,000 and ordered him to forfeit some $3.55 million, which represents real-estate sale proceeds in Alameda County. He previously paid $1.62 million in outstanding tax liabilities, including penalties and interest to the IRS as part of a judge's previous order.

According to his plea deal, Handel knowingly made false statements in a 2015 bankruptcy petition. He had stated he made no income for about two years, when he in fact earned about $2.26 million from DTMM Construction Inc., his West Los Angeles development company that stands for "Don't Touch My Money."

Prosecutors said DTMM was registered in his wife's name, concealing his income from creditors. The company's profits were used to pay for his family's living expenses.

Federal prosecutors said that in October 2016, Handel signed and filed a false federal income tax return for the tax year 2015 that failed to disclose almost $1.1 million in additional income. Handel further admitted that for the tax years 2010 to 2017, he failed to report a total of about $6.88 million of income on his federal tax returns, court papers show.

Handel also falsely reported a net operating loss of $7.25 million on his 2017 federal income tax return as well as underreported his income on his 2018 tax return by $1.41 million and admitted to failing to pay $460,408 in additional tax, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

City News Service contributed to this report.