Louisiana Bar Owner and Poker Player Accused of 505 Counts
I usually don't report on state tax fraud, but when I see someone accused of 505 counts, that gets my attention. From Lafayette, Louisiana, comes the story of Eric Cloutier. Mr. Cloutier is a former professional hockey player, and also has the same avocation as myself. He's a poker player, with about $160,000 in career winnings.
Mr. Cloutier owns two bars in Lafayette, and the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (LATC) was suspicious of his bars. The LATC alleges that Mr. Cloutier manipulated his cash registers so that the sales reported were substantially less than the actual sales—$1.4 million of under-reporting.
That's not the only thing he's accused of. There's one count of racketeering, two counts of theft and two counts of attempted theft, 67 counts of computer fraud, 92 counts of filing false public records, and a whopping 340 counts of obstruction of justice. Those 340 counts come from allegedly destroying evidence once the investigation had begun.
It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that Mr. Cloutier is looking at spending a lot of years in a Louisiana prison if found guilty.
Mr. Cloutier owns two bars in Lafayette, and the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (LATC) was suspicious of his bars. The LATC alleges that Mr. Cloutier manipulated his cash registers so that the sales reported were substantially less than the actual sales—$1.4 million of under-reporting.
That's not the only thing he's accused of. There's one count of racketeering, two counts of theft and two counts of attempted theft, 67 counts of computer fraud, 92 counts of filing false public records, and a whopping 340 counts of obstruction of justice. Those 340 counts come from allegedly destroying evidence once the investigation had begun.
It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that Mr. Cloutier is looking at spending a lot of years in a Louisiana prison if found guilty.