FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT
AUSA VICKIE E. LEDUC at 410-209-4885
January 9, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOUR FAMILY MEMBERS PLEAD GUILTY TO FAILING TO PAY TAXES ON OVER $860,000 IN UNREPORTED INCOME FROM WASHINGTON, D.C. RESTAURANT
Skimmed Proceeds from Kostas Cafe
Greenbelt, Maryland - Konstantinos “Gus” Stamoulis, age 70, of Potomac, Maryland, his sons John G. Stamoulis, age 40, of Seneca, Maryland and George G. Stamoulis, age 42, of North Carolina and daughter, Maria G. Stamoulis, age 36, of Potomac, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to a conspiracy to fail to report income to the IRS that was skimmed from daily receipts of Kostas Café (“Kostas”), a restaurant located at 1201 New York Avenue, Washington, D.C., announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.
According to the plea agreements presented to the court, from 1999 to about March 26, 2002, the defendants fabricated records for Kostas showing lower gross receipts than they knew to be true. The four family members split receipts skimmed from the daily gross receipts of Kostas and deposited the skimmed money into their individual bank accounts. Konstantinos Stamoulis directed the operation of the scheme and caused the split of the skim among the other co-conspirators. To support their scheme, the Stamoulis family members created two sets of register receipt tapes, one set which contained a substantial number of individual sales transactions (“the true receipt tape”) and another set which contained a single large transaction (“the false receipt tape”) that was always less than the true receipt tape. The difference between the higher figure in the true receipt tape and the lower figure on the false receipt tape was the “skim” for that period. The “skim” was typically several hundred dollars per day. Based on these tapes, the Stamoulises also prepared two sets of daily work sheets corresponding to these figures, the higher set of which frequently contained pencil entries with notations pertaining to a defendant’s initials, such as “K $200" and “GJM $200.” The other set did not contain such references. The Stamoulis family members then either under-reported at least $863,097 of their income on individual and corporate income tax returns, or failed to file any returns at all. The amount of federal tax loss is $98,439, for which each defendant is jointly liable.
Each defendant faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison followed by three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. As part of their plea agreement, each defendant has agreed to pay restitution in the amount of loss attributed to each defendant above. U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams, Jr. scheduled sentencing for April 2, 2007 at 9:30 a.m.
United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein praised the investigative work performed by the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney David I. Salem, who is prosecuting the case.
This page last modified—January 9, 2007