colorado man sentenced to federal prison four currently construction
Drywaller who Operated in the Anchorage Bowl and Matanuska-Susitna Valley Attempted to Avoid
Government Oversight and Payroll Taxes by Paying Undocumented Workers “Under the Table”
Anchorage, Alaska – Acting United States Attorney Kevin Feldis announced today, September 23,2010, that a Kremmling, Colorado man was sentenced to 12 months in prison, and ordered to forfeit$336,753, for currency construction. The court also ordered the defendant to serve a three-year term of supervised release
Esteban Lane Stubbs, 37, pled guilty today to one count of structuring a financial transaction, ofthe 21-count indictment, before Chief United States District Judge Ralph R. Beistline.
According to court documents, Stubbs owned Stubbs Enterprises, dba, Lobo Drywall, which heoperated in the greater Anchorage area. Stubbs employed undocumented aliens for drywall labor, whowere not lawfully permitted to work in the United States. Stubbs paid them sub-market wages in cash,and failed to withhold and pay employment taxes due to the United States. These low wages and theabsence of costs for income taxes, employment taxes, worker’s compensation, unemployment insurance,and other benefits paid by legitimate employers allowed Stubbs to underbid fellow contractors and gain asignificant share of the drywall business in the Anchorage bowl and Matanuska-Susitna Valley.
The defendant acknowledged that in order to conceal the aforementioned activities from thefederal government, he obtained large amounts of currency by making multiple withdrawals fromdifferent branches of First National Bank Alaska (FBNA). Stubbs knew that a transaction involving morethan $10,000 in currency would trigger the bank’s filing of a report to the IRS, and he sought to evade thefiling of that report. Between November 2004, and January 2007, Stubbs structured withdrawals in theamount of $336,753 for the purpose of paying his employees in currency, thereby evading employmenttaxes due and owing to the IRS. The count to which Stubbs pled guilty involved the structuring of$19,500 in withdrawals from FBNA in November 2004.
According to information presented in court, Stubbs deposited a check for over $35,000 to hisaccount at FNBA on November 15, 2004, and withdrew $5,000 in cash. The following day, he visitedfive separate branches of FNBA, withdrawing between $1,500 and $5,000 in cash each time, for a total of$19,500 over a two-day period. Similar conduct occurred on a nearly monthly basis for several years, andamounted to over $500,000 in currency withdrawals between 2003 and 2007.
Mr. Feldis commended the investigation conducted by the Internal Revenue Service - CriminalInvestigation.
