Robert Sepehr: Following the Money Trail

The response to my recent article on Robert Sepehr was far greater than I had expected and also quite mixed. No one refuted what I had written and instead resorted to assorted vague defensive claims that I ‘hadn’t debunked his research’ which wasn’t the point of the article, but rather it was to show that Sepehr is a Mizrahi jew and is also a proven liar (unless he can tell us who his ‘high-ranking SS grandfather’ was and evidence that lineage). (1)

One thing that became readily apparent during the course of my research on Robert Sepehr was that his motives for claiming what he does were dubious at best. This in part because Sepehr used to promote a different ‘Alien origins of life on Earth’ theory from 2003 to circa 2012-2013, but suddenly circa 2014/2015 he pivoted to something very different and strongly away from ‘Planet X’ and the Niburu (an extra-terrestrial alien race) theory he’d been promoting till then.

I will deal with Sepehr’s claims separately (both pre and post the foundation of his explicitly jewish not-for-profit legal entity ‘Atlantean Gardens’ in 2014/2015) but I wanted to build up the real picture of Sepehr by looking at what his publicly available financial returns for ‘Atlantean Gardens’ tell us.

The first thing to state here is that I don’t have any personal animus towards Sepehr - beyond the fact that I really hate jews conning money from my people - as I didn’t know much about him before I started to undertake this series of articles after numerous requests from my subscribers here as well as unsolicited requests to do so from followers on X.

The second thing to state is all the information I have worked with is freely available in the public domain and as such is checkable by anyone who wishes to do so.

Let’s begin by noting that the listed address for ‘Atlantean Gardens’ is a 1 Bed, 1 Bath apartment at 5334 Lindley Avenue Unit 133 in Encino, California (basically Los Angeles). (2) This is listed both on ‘Atlantean Gardens’ successful not-for-profit application in 2014 (3) and on its most recent financial filing for US tax year 2022. (4)

Therefore, we may reasonably sure that this has been Sepehr’s base since 2014 to present, but checking the sales history we note that while built in 1970 it was last sold on 24th November 2003 for $200,000. (5) The current rental estimate – if Sepehr was renting it – is $2,298 p.c.m. as of this writing (so $27,576 p.a.) and if Sepehr were to buy it today it’d set him back circa $392,700 according to Zillow. (6)

I mention all these figures because I think it is important to be honest and establish context for what I think and why I think it.

I would contend that the year this apartment was bought is actually important because 2003 is the same year that Sepehr’s film ‘Planet X’ came out and in which he had significant success with lots of interviews and so on. My guess is that either Sepehr himself (from the proceeds of sales of ‘Planet X’ and the resultant interviews/appearances plus any follow up productions he may have also sold) bought this apartment and/or his jewish film director father Ben-Hur Sepehr did with - or for - him.

This is only informed speculation, but it is based on the fact that at the end of the 2019 US tax year - for example - Sepehr’s ‘Atlantean Gardens’ only had $9,518 in the bank (just over four months rent for this apartment assuming it has stayed similar in terms of its rental value to that estimated at present) (7) and had Sepehr been paying rent we would have reasonably expected him to move to something a little less expensive so as to save money to allow him to continue working for longer. This also explains why Sepehr has never relocated away from Los Angeles – presumably also because of his father living in the city until his death in 2021 since Sepehr was reportedly very close to his father – to somewhere cheaper, more peaceful and with more space to enable a personal research library to be built up.

This is based on personal experience as an academic and historian myself in that I have a sizeable office with a very large numbers of books in it and yet I still have to keep some of books in storage precisely because research is a vast undertaking which requires a lot of time and a surprising amount of space.

Having examined Sepehr’s apartment in Encino and pointed out that he very probably owns it and doesn’t pay rent on it. This then allows us to examine ‘Atlantean Gardens’’ financial filings with a clearer picture without the plausible excuse of ‘he’s just paying rent’ for what they reveal.

‘Atlantean Gardens’’ ‘Form 990’ for 2022 details that its income was as follows: (8)

2021: $180,113

2022: $334,325

Salaries and benefits paid were:

2021: $54,500

2022: $0

‘Other Expenses’ paid were:

2021: $56,388

2022: $40,380

This left ‘Atlantean Gardens’ with $391,613 in the bank at the end of the 2022 US Tax Year.

This was submitted by Sepehr on 26th April 2023 and represents his latest filing.

Sepehr further clarifies that he spent $56,238 to make ‘60 films, an organizational events and 2 Conferences’ in 2022 and earned $334,325 from them.

Sepehr paid himself $20k as his official salary as ‘President’ of ‘Atlantean Gardens’ in 2022 and claims to work 50 hours a week plus being ‘Atlantean Gardens’ only employee:

Further ‘Other Expenses’ paid by ‘Atlantean Gardens’ in 2022 breaks down to:

Office Expenses: $13,500

Occupancy: $26,880

Total: $40,380

You might rightly ask why I am reproducing all this detail but in the world of accountancy and finance cost centres – which these are a form of – matter because while they may seem benign. They can also cover a multitude of sins under a superficially blasé title.

In this case ‘Office Expenses’ is probably just the ‘Cost of Doing Business’ because ‘Atlantean Gardens’ ‘Form 990-EZ’ for the 2021 US tax year lists a very similar figure as ‘Printing, Publications, Postage and Shipping’. (9)

My interest however is primarily in the ‘Occupancy’ cost because ‘Occupancy’ is defined as:

‘Occupancy costs are the total amount of property-related expenses paid by a tenant for use of a particular space. Occupancy costs include base rent as well as expense reimbursements paid by the tenant such as CAM charges but excludes business operating expenses such as payroll and sales tax. To calculate a tenant’s occupancy cost, simply add all property-related expenses pertaining to the specific space.’ (10)

What this means in laymen’s terms is that ‘Occupancy’ is supposed to cover rent paid to your landlord and any repairs/improvements you make to a property and ‘Atlantean Gardens’ is paying something very near the estimated rent of the Lindley Avenue apartment ($27,576 p.a.) to somebody and deducting it as an operating expense exempt from federal taxation.

The quick-minded among you may have already realised why I discussed the Lindley Avenue apartment and why Sepehr likely owns (and not rents) it earlier, because it’d make sense of how Sepehr was paying for his lifestyle if he wasn’t using his own or his family’s money to do so.

Essentially Sepehr is using a common legal fiction where his not-for-profit ‘Atlantean Gardens’ – of which he is the ‘President’ and the sole employee – is ‘renting’ Sepehr’s apartment from him and thus providing Sepehr with a steady stream of income. He then only has to take as much money out of ‘Atlantean Gardens’ as he needs to live on (this is taxed as normal) and then he can leave the rest of his money in ‘Atlantean Gardens’ as a way to avoid taxation on it.

However, ‘Occupancy’ costs need to be justified and backed up in case of an IRS audit (because the IRS aren’t stupid) so Sepehr has to tread carefully using this method of routing money back to himself and holding the rest tax free.

This is shown by looking at ‘Atlantean Gardens’’ ‘Form 990-EZ’ for the 2021 US tax year which details that its income was as follows: (11)

2021: $180,113

And that its expenses were as follows:

Salaries: $54,500

Professional Fees/Payments to Individual Contractors: $150

Occupancy: $33,030

Printing, Publications, Postage and Shipping: $13,400

Other Expenses: $9,808

Total: $110,888

This gives ‘Atlantean Gardens’ $69,225 profit at the end of the 2021 US Tax year which adds to his $84,130 which he had in the bank from the end of the 2020 US Tax year to give him $153,355 at the end of the US Tax year.

Further $84,130 ‘Atlantean Gardens’ had in the bank at the start of 2021 had grown to $97,668 by the end of 2021. The reason is unspecified but is probably related to interest and/or investments but the $13,538 in the filing is only mentioned once and disappears. I will leave you to speculate where the $13,538 may have gone to as it is not included in ‘Atlantean Gardens’’ end of year balance.

Coming back to ‘Other Expenses’ we should note that these are organized differently from the 2022 filing with ‘Office Expenses’ and ‘Occupancy’ costs included as ‘Other Expenses’ in 2022, but these are not reported as ‘Other Expenses’ in the 2021 filing but rather as separate items.

So, for example, if we worked out the ‘Other Expenses’ the same way in 2021 as was done in 2022 it would break down as:

Office Expenses: $13,400

Occupancy: $33,030

Vehicle Expenses: $9,808

Total: $56,238

The ‘Vehicle Expenses’ mentioned above is what ‘Atlantean Gardens’ is actually paying for as explained in their 2021 ‘Form 990 – Schedule O’. (12) It is unclear if this includes mileage expense claims, but I don’t believe it does; more likely is that Sepehr is charging vehicle maintenance/repair work on his private vehicle to ‘Atlantean Gardens’ because he uses it for ‘work on behalf of Atlantean Gardens’. This is likely because no vehicle is listed as being an asset of ‘Atlantean Gardens’ so it is likely Sepehr’s private vehicle.

Before I continue, I will further note that Sepehr only paid himself $500 as ‘President’ in the 2021 tax year and was the sole employee according to ‘Atlantean Gardens’’ ‘Form 990-EZ’ for that year.

This is another legal fiction in that Sepehr is the ‘President’ of ‘Atlantean Gardens’ so is entitled to board awarded compensation for undertaking that work/responsibility, but yet is also an employee (possibly with a contract of employment but I doubt it given that a salary figure is not consistently listed in ‘Atlantean Gardens’’ filings) and thus also entitled to a salary in this case: $54,000 (i.e., $54,500 – $500 from Sepehr’s remuneration as ‘President’).

This $54,500 would be taxable as normal and as we’ve seen Sepehr probably took another $26,880 as the ‘rent’ for his company using his apartment (using the 2022 figure and assuming this isn’t for maintenance/improvements to the property paid directly to contractors) from ‘Occupancy’ with the balance in ‘Occupancy’ of $6,150 probably being used for maintenance/improvements to the property paid directly to contractors.

This leaves Sepehr taking an estimated $81,380 out of ‘Atlantean Gardens’ in 2021 which would have been taxable, while also likely getting $9,808 worth of maintenance/work done to his private vehicle paid for (tax free) by ‘Atlantean Gardens’ in the same year.

So, in summary then we can see that Sepehr seems to have awarded himself a projected $91,188 in income and benefits out of ‘Atlantean Gardens’ in 2021 with another $13,538 in capital gains also not being accounted for in ‘Atlantean Gardens’ 2021 filing.

Moving on to the last available filing for ‘Atlantean Gardens’ – that for the 2020 US tax year – we note that a similar picture is present.

‘Atlantean Gardens’’ ‘Form 990-EZ’ for the 2020 US tax year which details that its income was as follows: (13)

2020: $130,434

Its expenses were as follows:

Occupancy: $54,622

Printing, Publications, Postage and Shipping: $1,200

Total: $55,822

Which gives him $74,612 profit at the end of the 2020 US Tax year which adds to his $9,518 which he had in the bank from the end of the 2019 US Tax year to give him $84,130 at the end of the 2020 US Tax year.

Once again, we note that that Sepehr has charged ‘Atlantean Gardens’ – again assuming my evidenced conjecture that he actually owns the Lindley Avenue apartment - $26,880 in rent for ‘use’ the Lindley Avenue apartment leaving a balance of $27,742 probably being used for maintenance/improvements to the property paid directly to contractors.

This suggests – although it does not prove – that the beginning of Sepehr’s success came in the 2020 US tax year (this likely correlates with COVID and the various restrictions that resulted) and that Sepehr has been using a significant amount of the revenue from ‘Atlantean Gardens’ to remodel/update his Lindley Avenue property – well at least that is what his not-for-profit filings for ‘Atlantean Gardens’ suggest – as well as to pay his personal expenses.

That the expenses for creating his content are actually very low is also indicated by his 2020 ‘Form 990-EZ’: (14)

Sepehr here is detailing that his total expenses for all his videos, research and promotional activities for 2020 were only $12,687.

I also note that Sepehr here details that he is charging meals out to ‘Atlantean Gardens’ at least weekly since catering for 12-46 individuals once every week would mean – based on his 2020 filing – that (12 x 52 = 624; 3,550 / 624) that he was paying $5.89 per person per week which suggests he must have been going to a fast food chain and ordering the cheapest things on the menu for all the participants.

Professional catering, a restaurant’s set menu or a venue’s menu simply isn’t that cheap!

What would make sense however is if Sepehr was charging his own meals to ‘Atlantean Gardens’ since that would mean that $68.26 was paid per meal per week (3,550 / 12) which is more what I would expect from a restaurant meal/catering.

If so, this is a reasonable business expense, but it also indicates yet further how little Sepehr actually spends on his ‘research’ with a figure of $3,025 covering both this writing (i.e., including research), publishing and marketing, while his production (i.e., video creation/editing) takes up the bulk of his actual costs with $6,112 listed.

My point here isn’t to harp to Sepehr but rather to show the reader that Sepehr’s cost to research each of his videos is remarkably low. So, say he produced 60 videos – as listed in ‘Atlantean Gardens’’ 2022 financial filing – in 2020; then he is only spending $50.42 on research per video (3,025 / 60) in 2020.

This might seem an odd thing to point out if you don’t write and produce your own detailed content, but – for example – my forthcoming booklet on the William of Norwich Jewish Ritual Murder case used $300-400 worth of books alone (to give context that this isn’t an aberration; in my forthcoming book on the Kosher Food Tax one key low print run reference book alone had to be bought for $200) and that’s deducting anything I could get online for free or via my university’s library/journal access portal or inter-library loan.

So, the idea you are doing $50.42’s worth of research – and remember that’s assuming all the $3,025 was spent on the research and none on the publishing and marketing – before you publish a video is actually very talking about the quality of the research. Since while money spent certainly isn’t everything; Sepehr is writing/talking about a realm of research with a pretty vast published literature much of which is not readily available online or isn’t in English (and Sepehr to my knowledge only speaks/reads/writes English).

Hence this should sound alarm bells for anyone looking to Sepehr for illumination since while it doesn’t necessarily mean his work is poor, shoddily done research suggests it probably is because he spends so little on his research according to… well… himself.

He might just be really good at finding resources for free but given that I have some familiarity with the field(s) he likes to write/talk about: I severely doubt it.

Now to conclude our remarks on what the finances it is clear that what Sepehr is probably up to with his not-for-profit ‘Atlantean Gardens’ is using it is a place to store large amounts of cash (the latest figure is $391,613 per his latest [2022] filing), recharge his personal, vehicle and property costs against ‘Atlantean Gardens’ and provide himself with a steady-stream of income with an absolute minimum of tax paid.

To be clear nothing that Sepehr is doing is actually illegal per se – although some does straddle the grey area of legality and illegality based on my own experience in business – but it is important that anyone who is looking to him for illumination knows how little of the money given to him appears to go to on research and how much goes to better Sepehr’s personal life.

In my judgement Sepehr is running the same grifting scheme on the racial right that he was doing on the conspiracy/UFOlogy world from 2003 to circa 2012/2013. This is why I’d urge you to think twice before taking anything he has to say seriously and certainly not to donate any money to him.

References

(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/is-robert-sepehr-jewish

(2) https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5334-Lindley-Ave-UNIT-133-Encino-CA-91316/19938315_zpid/

(3) http://www.nonprofitfacts.com/CA/Atlantean-Gardens.html

(4) https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/465098741/202311169349302001/full

(5) https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5334-Lindley-Ave-UNIT-133-Encino-CA-91316/19938315_zpid/

(6) Ibid.

(7) https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/465098741/202111189349201306/full

(8) Ibid.

(9) https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/465098741/202240919349200809/IRS990EZ

(10) https://www.realized1031.com/glossary/occupancy-costs

(11) https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/465098741/202240919349200809/IRS990EZ

(12) Ibid.

(13) https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/465098741/202111189349201306/full

(14) Ibid.