The co-owner of the largest group of talk radio and country music stations in Wyoming has pleaded guilty to evading millions of dollars in taxes related to a media M&A advisory business she ran with her husband.
Susan K. Patrick of Cody, Wyoming, admitted this week that she worked to hide $10 million earned by Patrick Communications, a Maryland-based brokerage firm she ran with her husband, Larry Patrick, that advised on the sale of radio and television stations.
She also admitted to falsifying her own tax returns to omit $9.5 million in income she had earned from the business, federal prosecutors in Maryland said.
A message left with her attorney wasn’t immediately returned.
The couple co-own Legend Communications, the parent company of Big Horn Basin Media, which operates 22 radio stations in Wyoming, including several country music and conservative talk radio stations in its larger market towns of Cody, Sheridan and Gillette.
On its website, Legend describes itself as the largest radio station group in Wyoming.
Legend Communications also has owned stakes in television stations in Los Angeles, Bridgeport, Connecticut and Concord, California.
Prosecutors say Susan Patrick hired an accounting firm to prepare taxes for her and Patrick Communications from 2012 through 2015, but then never filed them with the IRS.
When she was later notified that she hadn’t filed her taxes, she insisted she had and then provided the IRS with doctored returns from her business to omit $10 million in revenue the company had earned between 2012-214, prosecutors say. She also allegedly doctored her personal returns to remove $9.5 million in income she had earned for those same years.
By doing so, Patrick evaded paying $2.5 million in taxes she owed, prosecutors say.
Patrick faces up to three years in prison and heavy fines when she is sentenced in December.
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