Restaurant owner in Tukwila pleads guilty to nearly $1M in wage theft
The owner of the Simply Thai restaurant in Tukwila has pled guilty to wage theft and committing tax fraud from his own employees.
Keovilayvanh Rinthalukay, 62, pled guilty to charges of tax fraud and will serve 18 months in prison. Rinthalukay admitted to deducting federal taxes, Social Security, and Medicare from employees’ paychecks, then keeping the money and spending it on luxury items for his family between 2015 and 2019.
At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge James L. Robart said the amount withheld “is not a small number – it’s a lot of money. And the defendant didn’t find it necessary to pay his taxes for a number of years – it shows no respect for the law.”
Between 2015 and 2019, Simply Thai had dozens of employees, and the restaurant failed to pay the over taxes withheld from paychecks, as well as the employer’s share of the payroll and federal unemployment taxes. While the exact number is hard to determine, U.S. District Attorney Nick Brown said Rinthalukay failed to pay at least $926,092.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/restaurant-owner-in-tukwila-pleads-guilty-to-nearly-1m-in-wage-theft/ar-AA1aHbBw