Luis E. Perez, the man at the helm of several Orange County-based staffing companies, has been sentenced to an eight-year federal prison term for willfully evading close to $30 million in taxes and for causing a false tax return to be filed with the IRS. The sentencing was handed down on Friday by U.S. District Judge Kenly Kiya Kato, who also mandated Perez to cough up $38,052,767 in restitution. To compound the gravity of his offenses, these charges are situated upon a wider backdrop of his companies skirting nearly $60 million in tax liabilities.
In the course of his plea agreement, Perez admitted his wrongdoings, which included the failure to forward payroll taxes deducted from his employees' wages spanning over various tax years, from 2001 through 2010, and again in 2018 and 2019. In a statement by the U.S. Attorney's Office released yesterday, which laid bare the details, it was highlighted how flagrantly Perez seemed to be motivated to egregiously conceal his financial dealings from the IRS. According to his plea, his enterprises, which involve Checkmates Staffing Inc., Staffaide Inc., BaronHR, LLC, BaronHR West Inc., and Fortress Holding Group LLC, neglected to pay over these amounts as mandated by law.
IRS attempts to collect the sizable debt were foiled as Perez diverted funds to personal luxury items, including cars and a boat, cleverly concealing ownership by placing titles in the names of his businesses or other individuals. The items in question span the spectrum from a Lamborghini Aventador to a Duffy D 22 Bay Island boat.
The government's prosecutors pointed out that Perez also utilized financing tricks such as using a Visa Black credit card named after another person to make personal purchases, and settling the card's payments with business bank accounts. These actions, coupled with outright deceit during IRS interviews and failure to disclose material information, only served to complicate matters further. "[Perez] is a prolific employment tax cheat who engaged in a decades long pattern of willful non-payment, false statements, and outright evasion," the prosecutors argued, as stated in a press release by the Department of Justice.
Perez's bond was revoked in August 2024 ahead of his sentencing when he was found to continue violating tax laws, even while under pretrial release. The IRS Criminal Investigation unit was the lead investigator on this case, with the prosecution led by Assistant United States Attorneys of the Orange County Office, Major Frauds Section, and the Department of Justice Tax Division. Public Information Officer Ciaran McEvoy was available in the Justice Department's release to provide contact for any further inquiries.
