An El Paso business owner has been sentenced to a year and a half behind bars for skirting federal tax obligations, according to a court ruling handed down recently. Edward Dean La Puma, the 58-year-old proprietor of 77 Stone, a granite countertop enterprise, pleaded guilty to a single count of failing to hand over trust fund taxes accumulated over a swath of 20 tax periods, spanning from early 2018 to the end of 2022.
In a case that has wrapped up with a notable term of imprisonment, La Puma's tax delinquency amounted to a significant loss of $818,096 for the U.S. Treasury, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas. Arrested May 21, 2024, following an indictment on 20 counts in late April, he eventually entered a plea agreement last November, which includes a restitution component where La Puma agreed to repay $383,551 to the IRS.
The investigation, spearheaded by IRS Criminal Investigation, culminated in the sentencing handed down in the federal court in El Paso. Acting U.S. Attorney Margaret Leachman remarked on the case's resolution, emphasizing the consequences of flouting tax laws. Her statement elaborates further on the duty of business owners to "pay over trust fund taxes."
Meanwhile, Assistant U.S. Attorney Micaela Glass, responsible for the case's prosecution, shed light on the gravity of La Puma's offenses. While business owners like La Puma keep from the IRS significant sums of money by illicit means, Glass noted that such actions ultimately "rob every citizen" who abides by the tax laws. With the justice system's recent decision, El Paso has seen up close the penalties that transgressions such as these can incur.
