A Charlotte businesswoman pleaded guilty Monday in Wake County Superior Court to felony tax charges filed by the North Carolina Department of Revenue.
Stephanie Ann Holbrooks, 47, of 1025 Huntington Park Drive, Charlotte, pleaded guilty on July 2, 2018 to two counts of Embezzlement of State Property.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Michael O’Foghludha sentenced Holbrooks to a 16-month minimum, 29-month maximum prison term. The sentence was suspended and Holbrooks was placed on supervised probation for 36 months. As a condition of special probation, Holbrooks was ordered to serve six months in the custody of the Gaston County Jail and was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. Holbrooks paid $245,579.00 in restitution prior to the plea.
Information presented in court showed that Holbrooks, a former Certified Public Accountant and the current Chief Financial Officer of Appian Construction, LLC in Charlotte, assisted, or aided and abetted the business to embezzle, misapply, and convert to its own use $245,579.00 in North Carolina Withholding Tax during the period of August 1, 2010 through December 31, 2016. During this period, Holbrooks was the responsible person of the LLC and was under a duty to collect, hold in trust, and remit North Carolina Withholding Tax to the North Carolina Department of Revenue.
The charges against Holbrooks resulted from an investigation by special agents with the Department’s Criminal Investigations Section in Raleigh and was prosecuted by the Special Prosecutions attorneys in the office of the Attorney General.