RALEIGH – A Mecklenburg County businessman pleaded guilty Thursday in Wake County Superior Court to tax charges filed by the North Carolina Department of Revenue.
Thomas Alan Hickok, 67, of 2920 Hold House Circle, Matthews, pleaded guilty on January 26, 2017 to four counts of Embezzlement of State Property and one count of Obtaining Property by False Pretenses.
Superior Court Judge Donald W. Stephens sentenced Hickok to a 16-month minimum, 20-month maximum prison term. The sentence was suspended and as a condition of probation Hickok was remanded to the Wake County Detention Center for a 30 day active term. Upon release Hickok will be placed on supervised probation for 60 months. He was also ordered to pay a $15,000 criminal fine and complete 100 hours of community service work. Hickok paid $60,000 toward restitution prior to the plea and was ordered to pay the remaining balance over the period of probation.
Information presented in court showed that Hickok, President of Green Horizons and Beyond, Inc., located in Matthews, aided and abetted the corporation to embezzle, misapply and convert to its own use $77,798.00 in North Carolina Withholding Tax during the period January 1, 2009 through April 4, 2012. Additional evidence showed Hickok also filed 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 North Carolina Individual Income Tax Returns claiming credit for North Carolina Withholding Taxes of 9,465.20, which he knew had not been paid to the Department of Revenue.
The charges against Hickok resulted from an investigation by a special agent with the Department’s Criminal Investigations Section in Hickory.
P.O. Box 25000, Raleigh, NC 27640-0001
An Equal Opportunity Employer