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TRENTON
– Attorney General Anne Milgram and
Criminal Justice Director Deborah L. Gramiccioni
announced that a husband and wife were sentenced
today for failing to pay the state more than
$50,000 in sales taxes that they collected
from customers of their auto towing and repair
business in Sicklerville.
According
to Director Gramiccioni, James Hendricks,
52, of Sickerville, was sentenced to 364 days
in the Camden County Jail as a condition of
five years of probation by Superior Court
Judge Irwin J. Snyder in Camden County. His
wife, Mary Ann Clark-Hendricks, 46, was sentenced
to five years of probation. Hendricks and
his wife were also ordered to pay $51,560
in restitution, plus a penalty and interest.
On
Oct. 20, Hendricks pleaded guilty to theft
by failure to make required disposition of
property received and failure to remit sales
taxes, both in the third degree. Clark-Hendricks
pleaded guilty on the same date to third-degree
theft by failure to make required disposition
of property received. The charges were contained
in a July 1, 2008 state grand jury indictment.
In
pleading guilty, the defendants admitted that
they failed to remit more than $50,000 in
sales taxes that they collected from customers
between 1991 and 2007 at their business, B
& J Towing and Service on North Highland
Avenue in Sicklerville.
The
charges stem from an investigation by the
Division of Taxation Office of Criminal Investigation.
That office began investigating in 2007 after
receiving a tip from a B & J customer.
An initial review of B & J’s tax
filings revealed suspiciously low sales tax
remittances. The state executed a search warrant
at the business and seized voluminous records
of auto repair transactions. Although B &
J earned more than $960,000 in gross receipts
for tax years 1991 through 2007, the defendants
only paid the state a total of $1,046 in sales
taxes for those years.
The
case was investigated by Auditors Thaedra
Chebra, Bruce Stuck and Frank Papp of the
Division of Taxation Office of Criminal Investigation,
and Sgt. Robert Walker of the Division of
Criminal Justice Major Crimes Bureau. It was
prosecuted by Deputy Attorney General Denise
Grugan, who represented the state at today’s
sentencing hearing.
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