A former California police officer and his wife have been convicted of tax and insurance fraud, exploiting workers, and money laundering to the tune of 18 million dollars in connection with a private security company they owned.
Robert Foster and his wife pocketed millions of dollars by paying employees off the books, underreporting employee injuries, failing to pay employees for overtime and reporting false payroll. Investigators discovered that the Fosters hid about eight million dollars in payroll over three years, avoiding $578,716.56 in taxes and $560,293 in insurance premiums.
The couple dissuaded employees from reporting on the job injuries, and went as far as denying to their insurance company that one of their security guards was their employee after he was severely injured in a car accident, even though the guard was driving a company car and wearing a company uniform at the time of the accident.
Foster was sentenced to three years in prison and his wife to one year. They were ordered to pay $1 million dollars to an insurance company and to the state’s Employee Development Department, and face an order of restitution to pay the affected employees.