A High Point businessman was arrested Thursday on felony tax charges filed by the North Carolina Department of Revenue. Paul Robert Riggan, 48, of 305 Cascade Drive, High Point, North Carolina, was charged on May 17, 2018 with one count of Embezzlement of State Property and one count of Embezzlement of Guilford County property.
Arrest warrants allege that Paul Robert Riggan, owner and responsible person of Gate City Catering, LLC, doing business as Blue Water Grille and Blue Bourbon Jack’s, Soho Food Group, LLC, doing business as Lulu and Blu, and Blue Rock Pizza and Tap, LLC, aided and abetted the business entities to embezzle, misapply, and convert to their own use $194,239.84 in North Carolina and Guilford County sales tax during the period August 1, 2012 through January 20, 2016. During this period of time, Riggan was the responsible person of the businesses, which were under a duty to collect, hold in trust, and remit North Carolina State Taxes to the North Carolina Department of Revenue.
Riggan appeared before a Wake County magistrate and was placed under a $65,000.00 secured bond. A first appearance is scheduled for May 18, 2018 in Wake County District Court in Raleigh.
The charges against Riggan resulted from an investigation by special agents with the Department’s Criminal Investigations Section in Raleigh.