The owner of a Somerset, Ky., home health care agency will spend a year and a day in prison and pay nearly $260,000 for keeping employees' payroll taxes and contributions for health care benefits.
On Jan. 13, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that Ace R. Jones II, owner and then executive director of Cumberland Behavior Group LLC, pleaded guilty Sept. 20 to not submitting employees' contributions for health care benefits from March 1 to May 1, 2019. The nonpayment caused insurance-provider Humana to cancel the employees' coverage, resulting in 11 employees accruing $41,766 in unpaid health care claims.
“Criminal acts like this hurt workers who trust their employer to do what’s right with the hard-earned wages withheld for their health care benefits,” Joe Rivers, the Cincinnati regional director of the Employee Benefits Security Administration, said in the announcement. EBSA's Cincinnati division lead the investigation into Cumberland Behavior Group, the DOL reports.
Jones also withheld $259,648 in payroll, Medicare and Social Security taxes from the Internal Revenue Service, the DOL reports, keeping the funds for personal and company use. Jones will pay the IRS the taxes he withheld, as well as another $500 "special assessment" to the court. Jones has already reimbursed $41,766 to the 11 employees who had unpaid health care claims, according to the DOL.
EBSA Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations Division and the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office worked in cooperation with EBSA in the investigation and to secure the guilty pleas, according to the announcement.
“The U.S. Department of Labor is committed to ensuring the integrity of employee benefit programs" Rivers said in the announcement, "safeguarding workers’ benefits and holding those who violate the law accountable.”
