TROY – A Madison County businessman who failed to submit payroll taxes will be spending the next few years behind bars. Gary Hunsche, 56, of Troy, Illinois, was sentenced today to 48 months in prison for willfully failing to pay millions of dollars in employment taxes to the IRS.
Hunsche pled guilty to the charge on May 13.
“Tax fraud is not a victimless crime,” said U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft.
“Stealing from the public hurts all Americans, and those who flaunt the federal tax laws will be prosecuted,” he said.
Court records show that Hunsche owned and operated a pair of Troy-based staffing companies:
Unique Risk Management and Unique Personal Consultants. The businesses employed thousands of employees who were then leased to clients as temporary workers.
Between 2011 and 2016, Hunsche withheld federal incomes taxes, Social Security, and Medicare taxes from his employees’ paychecks but never paid them over to the IRS, resulting in a loss to the United States in excess of $9.4 million.
Hunsche used approximately $4 million in unpaid payroll taxes for improvements to his personal residence, located on 41 acres in Troy, including an indoor basketball court, a barn, a lake, and partial construction of a home with a swimming pool.
“Today’s sentencing of Mr. Hunsche shows that the courts do not take lightly those individuals that willfully fail to pay over millions in federal payroll taxes,” said Tyler Hatcher, Special Agent in Charge of IRS-Criminal Investigation’s St. Louis Field Office.
“Thousands of employees trusted Mr. Hunsche to properly collect and pay employment taxes but Mr. Hunsche admitted that he chose to spend the money he collected to build his empire. IRS Criminal Investigation will vigorously investigate employers who betray their duties to employees.”
As part of his sentence, Hunsche was also ordered to spend 18 months on supervised release.
The investigation was conducted by IRS-Criminal Investigation.
The prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Norman R. Smith and Luke J. Weissler.
