William Britt is a former Statesboro City Councilman. Notably, he served on the City Council at a time when bars and underage drinking was a topic of controversy for the city. On April 13, Britt stood before Chief Judge Randal Hall of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia and entered a plea of guilty for evading taxes on income from bars he co-owned near college campuses in Georgia. On August 29, the Department of Justice announced that Britt was sentenced to 33 months in prison.
According to the government, as part of a scheme amongst co-conspirators, each bar was nominally owned by a single individual; however, in reality the business partners owned the bars in varying ownership percentages. They profited by skimming cash from the establishments and disbursing it amongst themselves in accordance with their ownership percentages, and not reporting the cash disbursements to the IRS as income. Britt and his partners were able to conceal their true tax liabilities by misrepresenting the businesses’ true ownership, underreporting the bars’ income, and omitting cash distributions to the owners.
In addition to the term of imprisonment, Chief Judge Hall ordered Britt to serve three years of supervised release and pay $352,404.54 in restitution to the United States.
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