Four to serve time for dealer tip tax fraud

Jace Radke

Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2002 | 11:16 a.m.

A former comptroller and three former dealers at the Virgin River hotel-casino in Mesquite were each sentenced to six months in prison for their roles in a tax scam.

Dale Siepp and the three dealers -- Belinda Mosdell, Leveda Taylor and Leo Shan How -- had previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to deliver false tax documents to the Internal Revenue Service. The group fabricated documents to reflect understated tip amounts, according to a criminal indictment.

The four appeared before U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks, who approved a plea agreement that called for the prison time for each defendant as well as an order that they pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of the tips they neglected to acknowledge.

Siepp will pay $1,388 to the IRS, while Mosdell will pay $1,148, Taylor $1,532 and How $1,428.

Between July 1992 and December 1995, the defendants created and submitted fabricated tip records to the IRS indicating that their hourly tip rate was $5.50 per hour, but other dealers reported that tip rates in 1994 and 1995 were between $7.05 and $10.46 per hour.

All four defendants have been ordered to begin serving their prison terms on Nov. 7, but Hicks said that he would consider a request by Siepp to have his surrender date moved back.