The resolution to the case came Monday, when Brian K. Shoults, 42, of Mesa, Ariz., was sentenced to 21 months in prison Monday for tax evasion related to his embezzlement of $255,000 from Office Outpost.<\/p>\n
The store\u2019s owner, Ron Curtis, testified in federal court Monday that he narrowly survived bankruptcy and almost lost his house.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur business was failing. We went through a terrible four years,\u201d Curtis said. \u201cOn top of the theft, the whole economy collapsed.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the bookkeeper, Shoults was in charge of writing paychecks and entering expenses into the ledger.<\/p>\n
Over the course of three years, Shoults inflated his own paychecks by hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time and forged other expenses in the company\u2019s books to avoid detection.<\/p>\n
Shoults\u2019 embezzlement set in motion events that ultimately led to his capture. Curtis testified that he had to lay off staff, including Shoults. It wasn\u2019t until the bookkeeper was gone that Curtis found a bank statement in Shoults\u2019 desk showing a greatly inflated paycheck.<\/p>\n
Shoults pleaded guilty in May to four counts of income tax evasion \u2013 a federal felony \u2013 for not reporting the money he made from his theft on his tax forms. In exchange for the plea, federal prosecutors dropped 123 counts of wire fraud, stemming from his use of bank transfers to embezzle the money.<\/p>\n
Shoults apologized to Curtis in court Monday and said he was ashamed of himself.<\/p>\n
Yet he struggled to explain why he took the money during questioning by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Krieger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really not 100 percent sure why I did it. I\u2019ve been thinking about that the last two-plus years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Shoults currently is general manager of the Jack in the Box restaurant in the Phoenix area. He is married with a young daughter, and numerous family members and friends wrote letters of support to Krieger, asking for a light sentence.<\/p>\n
But Krieger refused, noting Shoults\u2019 criminal history and inability to explain why he defrauded the Cortez business.<\/p>\n
Shoults was previously convicted of illegally using a company credit card from a previous job at Panera Bread. He was sentenced to probation in that case.<\/p>\n
As part of his plea agreement, Shoults pledged to pay $262,413.16 in restitution to Curtis, as well as $66,616 in federal income taxes.<\/p>\n