Florida Roofing Contractors Plead Guilty To Tax Evasion

FORT MYERS, Florida – Two roofing contractors from Fort Myers, Florida, have pleaded guilty to tax evasion, after not reporting more than $3 million in business receipts.

David Aaron and Russell Ultes, co-owners of Marlin Construction Group LLC, a residential and commercial roofing company, admitted diverting customer checks made payable to Marlin to check-cashing businesses in nearby counties, where they cashed the checks and used the proceeds to pay for personal expenses.

They then caused Marlin’s books and records to falsely underreport the business’s gross receipts and income for 2018 and 2019.

Aaron and Ultes provided false information to the company’s tax return preparers, which resulted in the preparation of false corporate income tax returns that did not report all of the gross receipts and income. As the income from the fraudulent corporate returns flowed through to Aaron and Ultes’s personal returns, their personal income tax returns for 2018 and 2019 were also false.

This resulted in a tax loss to the IRS of more than $1.4 million.

Each contractor now faces a maximum of five years in prison, a period of supervised release, restitution, and monetary penalties.

U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell will determine their sentences after considering the US Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.