Former Bank Vice President Pleads Guilty to Employment Tax Conspiracy | WPN World People News

A former bank vice president pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States, on July 24th, announced Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and Acting U.S. Attorney Sandra J. Hairston for the Middle District of North Carolina.

According to documents filed with the court, Douglas Corriher, 68, was the Vice President at a South Carolina-based bank. From 2009 through 2010, Corriher extended several factoring loans, through nominee entities, to a bank customer who operated staffing companies in North Carolina. Through the use of nominees, he was able to circumvent federal regulations limiting the amount of money that can be loaned to a single entity.

The staffing company promised its clients that it would pay the payroll taxes for thousands of low-wage temporary workers that it supplied to its clients. The company issued Forms W-2 and filed employment tax returns showing that the funds had been withheld from the wages of the workers. In fact, the payroll taxes were not paid over to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Corriher was aware that the company owed more than $1 million in payroll taxes. Notwithstanding this, Corriher continued to make advances on the loans knowing that the fund of unpaid payroll taxes would enable the staffing company to repay the loan and allow the bank to continue collecting high rates of interest on the loan advances along with lucrative fees.

Corriher’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Oct. 6 before U.S. District Judge N. Carlton Tilley. He faces a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison, as well as a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice