LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Las Vegas restaurant owner/operator was sentenced Thursday to more than three years in prison for tax evasion, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Raul Gil, 63, who told bookkeepers at Casa Don Juan restaurants to create false sales numbers that resulted in underreporting sales by $5.1 million from 2014 through 2018, was sentenced to 37 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
The IRS was cheated out of $1.6 million in taxes, according to a news release from the office of Jason M. Frierson, U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada.
U.S. District Judge Andrew P. Gordon ordered Gil to pay $2,228,943.65 in restitution.
After the sales records were falsified, Gil sent them to an outside tax return preparer who prepared his federal income tax returns.
Gil pleaded guilty to tax evasion in August of 2022. At the time, he faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
During interviews with the IRS, Gil falsely stated that the daily cash reports and point-of-sale records were accurate. He repeated the lie to IRS-Criminal Investigation special agents, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, United States Attorney Jason M. Frierson for the District of Nevada, and IRS Criminal Investigations Phoenix Field Office Acting Special Agent in Charge Carissa Messick made the announcement.
The case was investigated by the IRS criminal investigations unit. Trial Attorney Thomas Flynn of the Tax Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Lopez of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada prosecuted the case.
