St. Louis, MO - John Perry was sentenced to 51 months in prison for failing to report kickback payments on his federal income taxes.

From 2001 to June 2004, Perry was the Materials, Planning and Logistics Manager for the Ford Assembly Plant in Hazelwood, MO, and was responsible for approving invoices from Ford vendors for expenses related to vehicle transportation and storage.

According to testimony presented at trial in February, Perry approved false and inflated invoices submitted to Ford by a vendor for transportation and storage expenses. When Ford paid the invoices, the owner of the logistics company paid Perry a kickback. Perry failed to report a large portion of these kickback payments on his federal income tax returns. Perry also participated in an inflated lease scheme for which he received kickbacks. While Perry was employed at Ford, Syms Trucking Co. obtained a contract to provide transportation logistics work and yard management at the St. Louis Assembly plant. Perry directed Syms to make payments to him in exchange for allowing Syms to keep its contract with Ford. A large portion of these payments were not reported on his federal income tax returns. From 2001 through 2004, Perry received in excess of $2,000,000 from these schemes, causing a tax loss of more than $600,000.

JOHN PERRY, Vermillion, OH, formerly of Lake St. Louis, MO, was convicted of four felony counts of tax evasion on February 28. He appeared today for sentencing before United States District Judge Audrey G. Fleissig. In addition to 51 months in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release, Perry was ordered to pay restitution to the Internal Revenue Service as a condition of supervised release in the amount of $926,602.75.

This case was investigated by Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Reginald Harris and Steven Muchnick prosecuted the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.