SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — Obayedul Hoque, a Bangladeshi-American resident of Virginia and Subway sandwich franchisee, was sentenced Monday to more than two years in prison for conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Hoque’s 30-month prison term and two years of supervised probation was handed down by U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady, the Justice Department said in a release Monday. Judge O’Grady additionally ordered Hoque to pay a $20,000 fine and more than $2 million in restitution to the IRS for tax liabilities stretching from 2008 through 2013.
According to court documents, Hoque owned and operated a Skyhill Shell gas station and multiple Subway restaurants throughout Washington D.C. and various communities of Virginia. However, Hoque admitted that he and his business partners on multiple occasions from 2008 through 2014 conspired to defraud the country for the purpose of obstructing the IRS in the ascertainment and collection of individual and corporate income taxes.
Hoque and his co-conspirators intentionally failed to deposit all of the gross receipts for his gas station and restaurants into their respective corporate or partnership bank accounts. Instead, he and the other managers retained a portion of the gross receipts for their own personal benefit, failing to report them to the IRS, the court documents said. For the Subway restaurants that had no partnerships, Hoque retained all unreported income himself, the documents added.
From 2008 through 2013, sales records reported total sales of $20,805,667. However, Hoque and his co-conspirators falsified tax records to show the total sales were just over $14 million.
Hoque and his managers also filed false tax returns for the Shell gas station, and on more than one occasion, filed no tax return at all. Hoque also filed falsified personal tax returns with the IRS, and later admitted that he failed to report between $1.5-$3.5 million in income to the IRS.
