Troy businessman sentenced for withholding $8 million in payroll taxes to ‘build empire’
A Troy business owner was sentenced Tuesday to four years in a federal prison and an additional 18 months of supervised release for withholding more than $8 million from employee paychecks without reporting it to the Internal Revenue Service.
Gary Hunsche, 56, owned and operated Unique Personnel Consultants with between 3,000 and 5,000 temporary workers that were outsourced to his clients.
Hunsche pleaded guilty to the charges in May, acknowledging that between 2011 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 “build up his personal empire.” Expenditures were made on renovations to his home, including a pond and a barn with a full-sized basketball court.
He also completed partial construction of a new house, according to a release from the federal court said.
“Tax fraud is not a victimless crime and hurts all Americans. Persons committing tax fraud will be prosecuted,” said U.S. Attorney for Southern Illinois Steven Weinhoeft.
Assistant U.S. attorneys Norman Smith and and Luke Weissler prosecuted the case based on evidence gathered by an IRS criminal investigation.
“Today’s sentencing of Mr. Hunsche shows that the courts do not take lightly those individuals who willfully fail to pay over millions in federal payroll taxes,” said Tyler Hatcher, special agent in charge of IRS-Criminal Investigations St. Louis Field Office. “Thousands of employees trusted Mr. Hunsche to properly collect and pay employment taxes but Mr. Hunsche admitted that he chose to spend the money to build his empire.”
“IRS Criminal Investigations will vigorously investigate employer who betray their duties to employees.”
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 4:36 PM.
