A Cumming businessman was sentenced to prison Tuesday for filing false personal income tax returns.
Jorge A. Castellanos, 49, will serve four years, nine months in federal prison and one year of supervised release. He was convicted Sept. 19 after pleading guilty to filing false returns for the 2006 and 2007 tax years.
“This office will continue to aggressively prosecute individuals, who knowingly and willfully defy their tax obligations by lying and cheating,” U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates in the news release.
Castellanos and two partners started an investment business in 2004 called GC Trading LLC (GCT LLC), which was supposed to pre-sell overstock golf equipment. The company was modeled after the separate Castellanos-owned GC Trading Inc. (GCT INC), prosecutors said.
Authorities said Castellanos duped his partners and diverted investors’ money into his GCT INC bank account, paying his own expenses instead of buying golf equipment for the other business. He then tried to hide the money by telling his accountants that the stolen income was from loans, leading to the false information on his income tax returns.
The false returns resulted in a tax loss of more than $1.3 million, officials said.
About the Author
