Station broker and owner Susan Patrick was sentenced today to 15 months in prison for filing a false tax return.
Patrick pled guilty in August to hiding $10 million in revenue earned by her company and falsifying her own tax returns to omit $9.5 million in income with the Department of Justice saying she sought to evade paying more than $2.5 million in taxes. In addition to the 15 month prison sentence, Patrick will serve one year of supervised release and must pay approximately $3,843,922 in restitution.
She and her husband Larry Patrick own Legend Communications which operates over 20 stations in Wyoming under the names Big Horn Radio Network, Big Horn Mountain Radio, and Basin Radio Network. Immediately following her guilty plea, Legend Communications said it would transfer Susan Patrick’s 50% ownership stake into a trust, however nothing had been filed with the FCC.
The Patricks and Greg Guy previously ran brokerage Patrick Communications until October when the company was dissolved with Larry Patrick forming Patrick Media and Greg Guy launching Tideline Partners.
A former Maryland woman was sentenced today to 15 months in prison for filing a false tax return.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Susan K. Patrick, now a resident of Cody, Wyoming, co-owned a media brokerage firm with her husband and hired an accounting firm to prepare business and personal tax returns for 2012 through 2014. Despite receiving the completed and accurate tax returns from the accounting firm, Patrick did not file them with the IRS. After the IRS contacted Patrick and requested that she file the unfiled returns, Patrick lied to the IRS, claiming that her accounting firm had timely filed the returns and that she would provide copies of those returns.
Patrick, however, did not provide copies of the accurate returns that had been prepared by her accounting firm. Instead, Patrick doctored the business returns, removing $10 million in gross receipts received by her brokerage firm, and altered the personal returns by removing over $9.5 million in related income that she and her husband had earned from 2012 through 2014. Patrick also falsely backdated her signature on each tax return to make it appear as if the returns had been timely signed and mailed these false documents to the IRS, hoping to evade paying the full amount of taxes she owed.
In addition, Patrick did not timely file business and individual returns for 2015, which she had also hired the accounting firm to prepare, nor did she pay the tax due and owing for the individual return.
In total, Patrick sought to evade more than $2.5 million in taxes.
In addition to the term of imprisonment, U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III for the District of Maryland ordered Patrick to serve one year of supervised release and to pay approximately $3,843,922 in restitution to the United States.
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron for the District of Maryland made the announcement.
IRS Criminal Investigation investigated the case.
Assistant Chief Thomas F. Koelbl and Trial Attorney Matthew L. Cofer of the Tax Division prosecuted the case.
