A former owner of more than 30 skilled nursing facilities was sentenced to two years in prison Thursday after conducting decades-long schemes to obstruct the IRS from collecting millions in taxes.
US District Judge Thomas Thrash of the Northern District of Georgia delivered the sentence to Douglas Mittleider, former president of Hyperion Foundation and AltaCare Management Corporation, which operated dozens of nursing homes across the US.
The two-year sentence was one year shy of the maximum, but the judge also imposed a one-year term of supervised release and a fine of more than $17 million in restitution to the government.
The former long-term care owner’s sentencing follows his September guilty plea to obstructing the IRS.
Mittleider had legal run-ins with the IRS as far back as 2004, after he failed to provide the income, Social Security and Medicare taxes that had been withheld from his employees’’ wages, according to a statement by the US Department of Justice.
Beginning in late 2011, he took elaborate measures to conceal his businesses’ funds, including those of long-term care facilities around the country.
“Mittleider directed the commingling of funds among businesses he controlled and used funds for purposes other than to pay the IRS,” the DOJ release explained. “Mittleider also caused the creation of new operating companies and bank accounts to make it more difficult for the IRS to locate assets and levy accounts. In total, Mittleider’s conduct caused a tax loss to the IRS of more than $17 million.”
McKnight’s Long-Term Care News reported on another incident in 2012 when a federal whistleblower lawsuit claimed Mittleider had failed to provide adequate staffing and supplies and even delayed care workers’ paychecks at his facilities. That case ended in a $1.25 million settlement.
Mittleider could not be reached for comment Friday.
