Berkeley Psychologist Convicted of Tax Evasion, Social Security Theft

By Doug Oakley
Staff Writer
Bay Area News Group
doakley@bayareanewsgroup.com

BERKELEY -- A 69-year-old former Stanford professor who worked as a psychologist in private practice and at Kaiser Permanente was convicted by a federal jury in Oakland Tuesday on five counts of tax evasion and one count of stealing Social Security checks. 

Hugh Baras, of Berkeley, faces a maximum prison sentence of 15 years for the crimes, according to the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco. 

During the seven-day trial in Oakland prosecutors showed that Baras earned more than $1 million in his private psychiatric practice from 2005 through 2009. Although he filed tax returns for those years, he omitted the income. 

At the same time he was working in his private practice, he collected Social Security disability benefits of about $80,000, which the government considers theft. 

Baras is scheduled to be sentenced May 22 in Oakland. 

According to the U.S. attorney's office, Baras was an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine before he started a solo, private practice in Palo Alto in late 2002. 

Baras did not immediately respond to a telephone call to his Berkeley home on Wednesday afternoon. 

Contact Doug Oakley at 925-234-1699. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/douglasoakley