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Lima business owner charged in tax evasion scheme
February 08, 2011 7:02 PM
Published Feb. 9, 2011
TOLEDO — A Lima woman who was a bookkeeper at a local business faces up to 20 years in prison for tax evasion connected to the embezzlement of $1.3 million.
Mary Sprague-McCourt is out on bail after pleading guilty last month to income tax evasion and mail fraud. A sentencing date has not been set, and prosecutors will ask the court to order she pay $1.3 million in restitution, the IRS reported.
Sprague-McCourt, 53, served as the bookkeeper for AWS Properties in Allen County, which owned and operated hotels in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Sprague-McCourt worked for the owner of AWS for 34 years. She was responsible for processing payroll and paying bills including making payroll tax payments, the IRS reported.
Sprague-McCourt and her husband owned and operated two businesses in Lima, Allen County Trophy and Kennedy Graphics.
Between December 2005 and September 2009, Sprague-McCourt wrote herself 338 unauthorized checks totaling $1.3 million. When payroll taxes were due for AWS she wrote the tax payment checks drawn on the company's bank account and entered the check numbers and amounts into the company's ledger, the IRS reported.
Sprague-McCourt, however, did not send the payroll checks to the IRS. Instead, she made the checks payable to herself, drawn on the business account, for the same amounts as the payroll tax payments. She deposited these checks into her personal bank account or into the bank accounts of Allen County Trophy or Kennedy Graphics. She concealed her embezzlement by establishing a post office box in AWS's name so she could intercept bank statements and IRS correspondence, the IRS reported.
She also altered AWS bank statements and falsified accounting summaries she sent to the company's outside accounting firm. When the IRS contacted her about unpaid payroll taxes, she took out an unauthorized business loan in another company's name that is owned by an AWS owner and used it to pay AWS payroll taxes. She forged the signature of the company owner on the loan application, the IRS reported.
You can comment on this story at www.limaohio.com.
Mary Sprague-McCourt is out on bail after pleading guilty last month to income tax evasion and mail fraud. A sentencing date has not been set, and prosecutors will ask the court to order she pay $1.3 million in restitution, the IRS reported.
Sprague-McCourt, 53, served as the bookkeeper for AWS Properties in Allen County, which owned and operated hotels in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Sprague-McCourt worked for the owner of AWS for 34 years. She was responsible for processing payroll and paying bills including making payroll tax payments, the IRS reported.
Sprague-McCourt and her husband owned and operated two businesses in Lima, Allen County Trophy and Kennedy Graphics.
Between December 2005 and September 2009, Sprague-McCourt wrote herself 338 unauthorized checks totaling $1.3 million. When payroll taxes were due for AWS she wrote the tax payment checks drawn on the company's bank account and entered the check numbers and amounts into the company's ledger, the IRS reported.
Sprague-McCourt, however, did not send the payroll checks to the IRS. Instead, she made the checks payable to herself, drawn on the business account, for the same amounts as the payroll tax payments. She deposited these checks into her personal bank account or into the bank accounts of Allen County Trophy or Kennedy Graphics. She concealed her embezzlement by establishing a post office box in AWS's name so she could intercept bank statements and IRS correspondence, the IRS reported.
She also altered AWS bank statements and falsified accounting summaries she sent to the company's outside accounting firm. When the IRS contacted her about unpaid payroll taxes, she took out an unauthorized business loan in another company's name that is owned by an AWS owner and used it to pay AWS payroll taxes. She forged the signature of the company owner on the loan application, the IRS reported.
You can comment on this story at www.limaohio.com.
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