For immediate release: Friday, September 19, 2003

For more information: Contact Jack Magee, Chief Legal Counsel, SD Department of Revenue and Regulation

(PIERRE, SD) - A former Pierre restaurant owner was sentenced Wednesday, September 17, 2003 to two years in the State Penitentiary and ordered to pay $20,000 in tax, penalty, interest and prosecution costs after pleading guilty to one Class 6 felony count of filing a false or fraudulent sales tax return.

Twenty-seven-year-old Horacio Desiderio Reyes was arraigned Wednesday in Hughes County on 12 felony counts of filing false or fraudulent sales tax returns; 11 of the charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.  Pursuant to Circuit Court Judge James W. Anderson’s Order, the $20,000 due from Reyes consists of $15,000 of tax, penalty, and interest (the City of Pierre will receive $6,435 of this amount) with the remaining $5,000 being applied to the costs of prosecution.  

The charges against Reyes stem from the operation of his business, El Tejavan, during the years 1999 through 2001.

Reyes is currently serving a prison term on unrelated charges; his two-year sentence on the felony tax charge will run concurrently with that term if he pays the amount ordered by the Court.  If he is unable to pay as ordered by the Court, the prison sentences will run consecutively and Reyes could be recharged with the counts that were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

The case was prosecuted by Special Assistant Attorney General Don Srstka and was investigated by the Department of Revenue and Regulation’s Investigative Services Bureau.

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