Couple Sentenced in Payroll-Tax Case
A North Hollywood couple has been sentenced to three years’ probation for failing to pay $12,000 in payroll taxes for employees working at the now-defunct Scandia restaurant at Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard, authorities said Tuesday.
Robair and Anette Altounian were sentenced March 11 by Ventura County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch to probation and ordered to pay back $12,000 in back taxes in lieu of serving jail time, said Rosemary Shorr, a spokeswoman for the Employment Development Department.
Shorr said the Altounians failed to pay taxes on up to 50 employees who worked at their restaurant between July 1, 1992, and April 30, 1993, when the business was shut down.
Shorr said the couple avoided paying taxes by not reporting that the people were working at the restaurant.
“That was the flagrancy of it,” she said. “That’s why the district attorney’s office wanted to prosecute these people.”
The Altounians were arrested in June, 1993, and pleaded guilty in December.
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