A Stark County trucking company operator has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for tax evasion, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio.
Alice F. Martin, 66, of Louisville, Ohio, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Donald C. Nugent after pleading guilty in August to charges of Attempt to Evade and Defeat Income Tax and Attempt to Evade and Defeat Payment of Tax. In addition to her prison sentence, Martin was ordered to serve three years of supervised release following her incarceration and must pay $1,971,660.86 in restitution. The sentence was handed down on December 2.
Court documents show that Martin owned and operated a trucking company called Martin Logistics. When the business became burdened with tax debt, she initiated a plan to avoid paying taxes by phasing out the company but continuing her operations through a new entity named TSA Transportation. Income from TSA Transportation was deposited into an account belonging to another business under her control, A.F. Martin.
Additionally, assets such as trucks and trailers were transferred from Martin Logistics into another company she created called Martin Global. IRS investigators determined that between 2013 and 2018, approximately $18 million in gross receipts from TSA Transportation were directed into A.F. Martin’s bank account without proper reporting.
Investigators concluded that during this period, Martin failed to report $3.6 million in taxable income and did not pay about $1.2 million in federal taxes owed.
The investigation was conducted by IRS Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI), which is responsible for handling financial crime cases including tax fraud and money laundering across its offices in the United States and abroad.
Assistant United States Attorney Edward Brydle prosecuted the case on behalf of the Northern District of Ohio.
“IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.”
