A world yoga enterprise founder whose chain of yoga studios promoted themselves as “Yoga to the People” pleaded responsible on Friday to a tax cost in a New York federal courtroom.
Gregory Gumucio, 63, of Colorado, apologized as he admitted not paying over $2.5 million in taxes from 2012 to 2020. He was freed on bail to await a Jan. 16 sentencing by Decide John P. Cronan, who questioned Gumucio throughout the plea continuing.
A plea settlement Gumucio reached with prosecutors requires him to obtain a sentence of about 5 years in jail, the utmost period of time he might face after pleading responsible to a single depend of conspiracy to defraud the Inner Income Service.
Two different defendants are awaiting trial within the case.
Gumucio’s enterprise, which generated over $20 million in income, had operated in about 20 places in the US, together with in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, California; Tempe, Arizona; Orlando, Florida; and cities in Colorado and Washington. It additionally operated in studios in Spain and Israel and was searching for to develop to different nations when it closed 4 years in the past.
When Gumucio was arrested two years in the past, a prosecutor stated he was the residing in Cathlamet, Washington, and had been arrested 15 occasions and had up to now used not less than six aliases, three Social Safety numbers and claimed three locations of beginning.
He was finally freed on $250,000 bail by a Justice of the Peace decide who famous that his final earlier arrest was in 1992.
In courtroom on Friday, Gumucio acknowledged that he had agreed to pay $2.56 million in restitution, together with curiosity, to the IRS.
He stated he didn’t pay the taxes from 2012 to 2020.
“I apologize for that,” he instructed Cronan, saying he operated yoga studios in Manhattan’s East Village and elsewhere in the US throughout these years.
Underneath questioning from the decide, Gumucio stated yoga academics had been paid in money, and he didn’t present them tax kinds indicating how a lot income had been taken in.
“I deliberately did not file tax returns to avoid paying taxes,” he stated.
He stated he was presently residing in Colorado, although he didn’t specify the place.
As he left the courthouse, Gumucio stored his head bowed as soon as he realized he was being photographed. He declined to remark.
