Former Office Manager of Hobbs Business Sentenced to Prison on Federal Tax Charges

ALBUQUERQUE – Connie C. Sims, 44, of Eunice, N.M., was sentenced today in federal court in Las Cruces, N.M., to a year and a day in prison followed by one year of supervised release for violating the federal tax laws, announced U.S. Attorney Damon P. Martinez and Special Agent in Charge Ismael Nevarez Jr. of the Phoenix Field Office of IRS Criminal Investigation. Sims also was ordered to pay $169,951.00 in restitution to the IRS in addition to a $100,000.00 fine. 

Sims was charged with four counts of federal tax evasion in an indictment filed in Sept. 2014.  The indictment charged Sims with evading her federal tax obligations during tax years 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 by failing to report her true income.  At the time the offenses were committed, Sims was employed as the office manager of a surveillance equipment company located in Hobbs, N.M.

On March 18, 2015, Sims pled guilty to all four counts of the indictment and admitted that she knowingly evaded approximately $120,366.00 in federal taxes by failing to report an aggregate of $482,890.00 in income during tax years 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.  In her plea agreement, Sims admitted that from 2010 through 2013, she wrote checks to herself on the company’s bank accounts and did not report the money as compensation when she filed her federal tax returns.  Sims acknowledged deriving an aggregate amount of $482,890.00 by writing checks to herself, which resulted in a loss of $120,366.00 to the IRS when she failed to report the income in her federal tax returns.

This case was investigated by the Las Cruces office of IRS Criminal Investigation and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Gould of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch Office.