Former Milton Mayor Guy Thompson was sentenced to 51 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to 23 counts of tax evasion and embezzling more than $650,000 in charity donations.
Not only will he face more than four years in prison, he will have to repay what he stole from society—every single dime of it, U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers ruled during an hours-long session at a packed Pensacola federal courthouse on Friday.
Thompson pleaded guilty in May 2019 to 20 counts of wire fraud and three counts of tax evasion that he had committed as head of the Unified Way of Santa Rosa County, a charity funding organization. Thompson reportedly used his position as a cover for concealing a complex scheme of fraudulent money transfers and deposits.
He managed to funnel an estimated yearly extra income of $80,000 to $90,000 meant for charity into his bank account, and avoided paying an estimated $159,362 in taxes, according to Fox News.
Thompson used the money to make luxury purchases like a BMW and a beachside condominium, as well as gifts for his wife and family.
Thompson, 66, a respected figure in Santa Rosa County and the city of Milton, represented as a counselor for the Republican Party from 1978 to 1994, after which he became the mayor Milton until 2014.
“Your ability to commit this crime … was enabled by the reputation that you built in public service,” Judge Rodgers told Thompson during the trial, according to the Pensacola News-Journal.
Prosecutors did not establish any proof of Thompson having stolen money from the community in his position as Mayor. He did, however, abuse his authority to purloin hundreds of thousands of dollars while heading the charity.
The case came to light when last year Thompson hired an administrative hand, 20-year army veteran Ronald Benson, to coordinate his charitable’s checkings. Benson soon stumbled upon “irregularities” in Thompson’s accounting techniques, Benson testified in court.
Benson resigned from the job when he found out about Thompson’s scheme, but when he brought the case into the open, Thompson first tried to smear him in an attempt to cover it up. Benson also testified that Thompson, in the capacity of his job, managed to prevent Benson from getting a job ever since.
The FBI launched an investigation into Thompson’s accounts in October 2018 and raided United Way of Santa Rosa County’s headquarters in Milton, finding out that, indeed, Benson’s allegations were true—and probably worse.
Because the investigators could only trace Thompson’s accounting history back till 2011, they could only prove that the fallen Mayor had embezzled $652,000. In his position as director of the charity, which he held since 2004, he could have suppressed much more.
“The government only knows about seven years,” Rodgers told Thompson. “You led that organization for nearly 40,” the News-Journal reported.
United Way Santa Rosa County promptly fired its director. The United Way organization demanded the local organization no longer operate under its name and will soon be disbanded.
The Milton counsel, who had named their community center after Thompson to honor him for his services to the community, has decreed that the name shall be removed from the building as well as many other references to Thompson as soon as possible.