A high-class escort was jailed for 16 months today for failing to pay £120,000 in tax.
Donna Asutaits, 29, made more than £300,000 between 2005 and 2007.
She was able to put down a £110,000 cash deposit on her £360,000 apartment in fashionable Brompton Road in Kensington, west London in March 2007.
Southwark Crown Court heard Asutaits started working as a call-girl to fund a masters degree at the University of Westminster.
A police raid on her home found £73,000 stashed in her flat and items of high value jewellery given to her by some of her clients.
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay said the escort failed to file any tax returns for most of her working career.
‘This defendant was working for years as an escort and in that job she received significant sums of money.
‘To give an example of this was a deposit put on her flat on Brompton Road.
‘This deposit, of £110,000 was paid in cash by the defendant, so clearly that money was available as profit, and available as cash.
‘In addition, in relation to another investigation, police carried out a search of her property and found £72,702 in cash.

More...
Half of graduates will be paying off loans in their 50s - with middle class students 'to be hardest hit'
‘In addition high value jewellery was found.
‘When this defendant was arrested in relation to this matter in November 2011, a further £6,200 in cash was found.

Trial: Southwark Crown Court a police raid on Asutaits' home found £73,000 stashed in her flat and items of high value jewellery given to her by some of her clients
‘When she was arrested she read out a pre-prepared statement in which she said she had been a self-employed escort for about ten years, and that she was often paid in cash and received valuable jewellery in gifts.’
Stan Reiz, defending, told the court Asutaits started work as an escort to fund her university education.
‘It is lamentable that any young woman should have to come to London and do this kind of work in order to support herself,’ he said.
‘Her family have been embarrassed by these proceedings, not only because of the offence but because they didn’t know she was working as an escort in the first place.

Funding: Asutaits started working as a call-girl to pay for a masters degree at the University of Westminster
‘The criminal offence was committed in naivety on her part, as she was only 22 when this started.
‘Since this has been hanging over her, she had suffered from depression and insomnia and has taken illicit drugs, and has dropped out of her masters degree.’
Jailing her today Judge Peter Testar said she had deliberately avoided paying any tax from the start.
‘The amount of tax which is subject to this charge which has been evaded is £120,000,’ he said.
‘In my judgement this was an offence that was fraudulent from the outset carried out over a significant period of time.
‘From the outset the defendant made the decision that she was not going to account to the public authorities for the money that she was receiving from her occupation.’
Asutaits, of Brompton Road, Kensington, admitted one count of cheating the public revenue.
Prostitution is not illegal in the UK, but soliciting (advertising sexual services), streetwalking and brothels (where more than one woman sells sex in an apartment) is illegal.
The act of exchanging money for sex is within the law in Britain, but Asutaits’s failure to declare the cash she earned to the HM Revenue & Customs using a self-assessment form is illegal.
A proceeds of crime hearing will take place later this year to recoup some of the tax.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-21...l#ixzz20ABgNnvn