Patricia Bowman, who also goes by "Trish" of Sierra Vista, Arizona, ran a payroll company called Daystar Payroll LLC. She was arrested in 2021 and charged with 41 felony counts of fraud, theft, money laundering and forgery. She was accused of faking tax documents and providing false paperwork to her clients so she could embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Bowman’s actions have affected ten clients who have lost just over $1.2 million in penalties and interest assessed by the federal government, said Sierra Vista Police spokesman Corporal Scott Borgstadt.
In his probable cause report, Sierra Vista Detective John Papatrefon wrote: “She would complete the paperwork (941 Form) showing she paid the payroll tax, but would actually take the money for her own use. During multiple interviews with Patricia Bowman, she admitted to taking money from her customers meant to pay the federal and state income tax bills beginning in 2012.”
“The amounts of money she would steal were small in the beginning, and she could pay them back. After years of taking money, it snowballed into much larger amounts, and she could not catch up, and she closed the doors to her business on October 1, 2019.”
An internet search of Patricia Bowman’s concern, which she purchased in 1996, shows that the services Daystar provided included payroll report preparation 1099 and W-2 preparation, workman’s compensation reports, and direct deposit services.
Sierra Vista police detectives have been investigating Bowman and her former company, Daystar Payroll LLC, since last February.
“She came in for an interview (on Tuesday), and we arrested her afterward,” Borgstadt said.
Last April, Papatrefon said that Patricia Bowman, at that time, had embezzled $500,000 from her victims. That’s when Papatrefon forwarded the case to the Cochise County Attorney’s Office.
The $500,000 — which was pilfered from eight victims — was the amount stolen by Bowman “before penalties and interest,” the investigator told the Herald/Review.
Bowman, who stated on her website that she attended schools in Sierra Vista after moving here when she was 11, also wrote: “I love what I do and really enjoy the close relationship that I have with my clients. I look forward to many more years!”
According to the probable cause report, the companies Patricia Bowman left in the lurch include Affiliated Dental.
Patricia Bowman awaiting sentencing
A review of Arizona court records reveals that she made a plea bargain in April 2022 and is currently awaiting sentencing under Cochise court case S-0200-CR-202100021
Content retrieved from https://www.myheraldreview.com/news/crime/sierra-vista-woman-charged-with-multiple-counts-of-embezzlement-fraud-theft-police-say/article_9ffc81d0-55ec-11eb-97c3-e7ea76d4e43a.html
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