A California CEO has entered a guilty plea for withholding employment taxes that were due to the IRS. John Comeau, former head of the metal-coating service company Vivid Inc. in Santa Clara, admitted in court to not reporting nor paying taxes taken from employees' wages, including Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

According to court documents, between 2010 and 2019, Comeau was responsible for Vivid’s financial operations but chose to ignore the obligation to remit the withheld payroll taxes. Instead of fulfilling his duty, he caused the IRS to incur a loss of approximately $1.15 million, deliberately hindering the operations of a government fundamentally sustained by the participation and contributions of its citizens.

The conviction has set the stage for Comeau's sentencing, scheduled for April 30, 2025. The announcement states that he could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison. In addition to potential prison time, Comeau may be subject to supervised release, restitution, and monetary penalties. A federal district court judge will consider the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines as well as other statutory factors to determine the sentence.

The case results from investigative work by the IRS Criminal Investigation Unit. Mahana Weidler of the Tax Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ilham Hosseini for the Northern District of California led the prosecution. Justice Department's Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg and U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey for the Northern District of California have announced the guilty plea.