Tarpon Springs businessman, 80, charged once more with monetary wrongdoing

A outstanding Tarpon Springs businessman and philanthropist who in 2018 was accused of avoiding greater than $8 million in taxes is as soon as once more dealing with allegations of monetary wrongdoing.

William Planes has been arrested on an aged exploitation cost after he persuaded an 88-year-old man to deposit almost $1.5 million into an account, then tried to take 20 p.c of the cash as a “contingency charge,” the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Workplace reported Thursday.

Planes couldn’t be reached for remark Friday at cellphone numbers listed for him.

Planes and his spouse, Regina, had turn into pillars of the neighborhood throughout their twenty years within the metropolis, funding a lavish Epiphany celebration, a parochial faculty and a neighborhood middle. However in further to their philanthropic actions, in addition they purchased a $57,000 Mercedes, a yacht, a seashore house and $4,425 in Christmas decorations for his or her mansion as an alternative of paying greater than $8.8 million in employment and earnings taxes, the federal government stated in a 2018 civil grievance.

The couple continues to be awaiting trial in that case. However on Thursday, William Planes was as soon as once more accused of fraud, this time involving an 88-year-old sufferer who employed Planes as his monetary adviser, sheriff’s officers stated.

Sheriff’s officers stated in a information launch that the sufferer within the case, who doesn’t communicate fluent English and “suffers from the infirmities of ageing,” had employed Planes as a monetary adviser in March 2018. The person had lately obtained a “litigation settlement after the sale of two business entities,” the information launch states.

Planes persuaded the person to deposit $1.45 million into Planes’ enterprise account. In September of that yr, when the funds have been to be launched to the person, Planes retained 20 p.c — about $323,000 — and advised the person he was retaining it as a part of a contingency charge, sheriff’s officers stated.

They stated detectives realized that the 88-year-old man by no means agreed to these phrases.

It was unclear Friday why an arrest wasn’t made till greater than three years after the incident.

In 1984, Planes was sentenced to 3 years in federal jail for embezzlement involving greater than $14,000 from a South Florida financial savings and mortgage that he had been employed to work on. He additionally briefly frolicked in a Miami jail within the Nineties, having pleaded no contest to fraud and dangerous test costs.

Court docket data present Planes was arrested on Pinellas County costs of issuing nugatory checks in 2009 and 2010 and on costs of constructing a deposit with intent to defraud in 2011. The fees in all these circumstances have been dismissed, data present.

Planes was launched Thursday evening from the Pinellas County Jail on $10,000 bail.