Susan Patrick Gets Prison Time, Significant Restitution Order

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Susan K. Patrick, who with her husband Larry Patrick ran Patrick Communications as one of the largest media brokerage firms in the U.S., has been sentenced to 15 months in prison by a Maryland federal district judge for “willfully making and subscribing a false tax return.”

In addition to the term of imprisonment, U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III for the District of Maryland ordered Mrs. Patrick to serve one year of supervised release and to pay millions of dollars in restitution to the United States.


The restitution of approximately $3,843,922 was agreed upon February 15, ahead of Tuesday’s sentencing hearing in Baltimore. 

Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron for the District of Maryland made the announcement.

As RBR+TVBR previously reported, court documents and statements made in the Maryland federal district court support evidence that Mrs. Patrick, who resides today in Cody, Wyo., hired an accounting firm to prepare business and personal tax returns for 2012 through 2014. Despite receiving the completed and accurate tax returns from the accounting firm, Patrick did not file them with the IRS. After the IRS contacted Patrick and requested that she file the unfiled returns, Patrick lied to the IRS, claiming that her accounting firm had timely filed the returns and that she would provide copies of those returns.

Patrick, however, did not provide copies of the accurate returns that had been prepared by her accounting firm. Instead, Patrick doctored the business returns, removing $10 million in gross receipts received by her brokerage firm, and altered the personal returns by removing over $9.5 million in related income that she and her husband had earned from 2012 through 2014. Patrick also falsely backdated her signature on each tax return to make it appear as if the returns had been timely signed and mailed these false documents to the IRS, hoping to evade paying the full amount of taxes she owed.

In addition, Patrick did not timely file business and individual returns for 2015, which she had also hired the accounting firm to prepare, nor did she pay the tax due and owing for the individual return.

In total, Patrick sought to evade more than $2.5 million in taxes, the DOJ notes.

An official court docket update had not yet been made as of 12:45pm Eastern on February 20.

Assistant Chief Thomas F. Koelbl and Trial Attorney Matthew L. Cofer of the Tax Division prosecuted the case.


More from the RBR+TVBR Archives:

Broker Comments On Falsification of Federal Tax Returns