Troy business owner withheld $8 million in payroll taxes for himself, faces prison
A Troy business owner pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday to charges that he withheld more than $8 million from employee paychecks without reporting it to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
Gary Hunsche, 54, owned and operated Unique Personnel Consultants with between 3,000 and 5,000 temporary workers that were outsourced to his clients.
With his guilty plea, Hunsche acknowledged that between 2014 and 2016, he withheld federal income taxes, Medicare and Social Security taxes from the employees’ paychecks without turning the funds over to the IRS.
According to charging documents filed in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of Illinois, he used at least $4 million of that money to renovate his home with a pond and a barn with a full-sized basketball court. He also completed a partial construction of a new house, according to prosecutors.
Hunsche pleaded guilty to “Willful Failure to pay Employment Taxes,” according to a United States Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft’s office.
Hunsche is scheduled to be sentenced on August 17. He faces up to five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
Assistant U.S. attorneys Norman Smith and and Luke Weissler prosecuted the case based on evidence gathered by an IRS criminal investigation.
This story was originally published May 13, 2021 at 4:20 PM.
