STATESBORO, Ga. — Editor's note: Video and photo are from 2017 raid of Milledgeville bar.
A Milledgeville bar and restaurant owner pled guilty to tax evasion and is now awaiting sentencing.
According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office – Southern District of Georgia, Eugene R. Britt III, aka Trey Britt, 52, admitted to evading more than half a million dollars in taxes.
Court documents say Britt engaged in a scheme to evade taxes owed to the IRS on income from bars and a restaurant he and others owned near college campuses in Georgia. As part of the scheme, Britt and others disguised their ownership in the bars by causing each business to be owned on paper by a single person. Britt and the other true owners then shared in the profits by skimming cash and disbursing it amongst themselves.
Britt personally controlled the distribution of cash for three of the establishments. As part of his guilty plea, Britt admitted that for approximately two decades he skimmed cash from his bars and restaurants and did not report it on his tax returns.
The release says Britt admitted to engaging in a similar cash skimming operation involving sales of beer at a music festival in 2015. Britt ensured that his individual tax return was false because he did not inform his accountant of the cash he received from the bars and the music festival during this year. In total, Britt caused a total tax loss to the IRS of more than $535,000.
Britt faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, followed by up to three years of supervised release, along with restitution and substantial financial penalties.
IRS-Criminal Investigation and the FBI are investigating the case.