A Bloomington man and owner of a local cabinet-making company faces 13 felony charges after state investigators determined he failed to pay more than $56,000 in sales taxes he reported as filed but did not pay to the state.
Indiana State Police arrested Larry Joe Ferree, 59, 7620 S. Burch Road, Thursday evening on a warrant on the following charges: one count of being a corrupt business influence; four counts of theft; four counts of money laundering; and four counts of failure to remit taxes. The Monroe County Prosecutor’s Office and Indiana Attorney General’s Office filed the charges on Thursday.
Ferree was booked into the Monroe County Jail at 5:50 p.m. Thursday and released from the jail two hours later after posting $1,500 in bond.
Investigators report Ferree’s business collected the 7 percent sales tax from customer purchases and filed proper sales tax returns with the Indiana Department of Revenue, but did not pay those taxes to the department.
Instead, officials report, Ferree kept the tax money and put it back into the business.
An investigation by the Attorney General’s Office and the Indiana Department of Revenue determined that between December 2008 and June 2011, Ferree filed 14 monthly sales tax returns — a total of $56,388.70 — with the state, but included no payment, according to a probable cause affidavit on the case.
Ferree owned Bloomington’s Ferree Cabinet Co. Inc. After the Indiana Attorney General’s Office prohibited Ferree’s cabinet company from conducting business until the taxes were paid, state investigators discovered Ferree and his wife reopened the same company at the same address, but with a new name.
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