[NEWS] Ethanol Refinery Owner Pleads Guilty to Tax, Water Violations
– June 16, 2016, KCCI
Federal prosecutors say a northeast Iowa ethanol plant owner has pleaded guilty to failing to pay employment taxes and dumping ethanol into a stream.
Randy Less, of Hopkinton, was charged in January with failing to collect and pay to the government federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld from the wages of employees of Permeate Refining.
At his guilty plea hearing on Tuesday, Less admitted he failed to properly handle payroll taxes. He also admitted that in July 2013 he discharged ethanol into an unnamed tributary of the Maquoketa River violating the Clean Water Act.