'A tough lesson': Judge sentences Ponte Vedra man to prison, $1.9M payment for tax evasion
A Ponte Vedra Beach man has been sentenced to a year and a day behind bars for evading income taxes by hiding millions of dollars behind front companies.
Patrick B. Hines took a plea deal in November that acknowledged he’d used a chain of people and “nominee” businesses to conceal wealth he received from companies that controlled 1-800 phone lines which sold ads that callers heard when they phoned in.
Between 2012 and 2018, the plea deal said, Hines arranged for $2.5 million from accounts in names of other people and companies to be used on his personal expenses like fees for personal training sessions, dues at private clubs, $275,000 in mortgage payments and tuition for his kids’ private school.
The Internal Revenue Service had been hounding him for unpaid taxes even before then, but Hines said he was broke and living off money from the earlier sale of a different home, the plea deal said.
Besides the prison time, on Tuesday Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan ordered Hines to pay $1.9 million in restitution to the IRS, separate from a $9.8 million debt he already owed to the California Public Utilities Commission.
“For over a decade, Mr. Hines lied to the Internal Revenue Service, cheated the tax system, and stole from honest American taxpayers,” Brian Payne, special agent in charge of IRS criminal investigations office in Tampa, said in written remarks after the sentencing. “Mr. Hines’s attempts to conceal assets and income to evade taxes were unsuccessful and a tough lesson that came with significant consequences.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Ponte Vedra sentenced to year in prison, $1.9M IRS debt for tax evasion
