TRENTON-After a more than three-year-long investigation kicked off by the Obama era U.S. Justice Department against influential Republican powerbroker George Gilmore, a federal jury ruling has not yielded the results federal prosecutors sought.
After raiding municipal offices, searching for seeking political corruption charges against the influential Republican party leader, the feds had to settle with what they had after a jury failed to deliver a guilty verdict on three tax evasion charges, claiming he filed false tax returns in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Instead, the federal jury convicted Gilmore of two counts of failing to pay over to the IRS payroll taxes withheld from the firm’s employees and one count of making false statements on a bank loan application.
The jury did convict Gilmore of failing to timely may payroll tax payments to the IRS over two quarters in 2016. Gilmore was also convicted of filling out false information on a personal bank loan.
His attorney, Kevin Marino said he will seek to file a motion with U.S. District Court Judge Anne E. Thompson to overturn the guilty verdicts.
“The jury has flatly rejected the centerpiece of the government’s case,” Marino said.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, Gilmore was responsible for withholding payroll taxes from the gross salary and wages of the law firm’s employees to cover individual income, Social Security and Medicare tax obligations. For the tax quarters ending March 31, 2016, and June 30, 2016, the law firm withheld tax payments from its employees’ checks, but Gilmore failed to pay over in full the payroll taxes due to the IRS in a timely manner.
The Justice Department Gilmore also submitted a loan application to Ocean First Bank containing false statements on a home mortgage refinance application by not disclosing outstanding tax liabilities on his application.
Marino said he is confident that Judge Thompson would overturn the convictions, if not he is ready to file an appeal on behalf of his client.
He added that Gilmore does not plan to resign as the Chairman of the Ocean County Republican Organization, in the state’s most powerful Republican stronghold.
While Gilmore left the courtroom with three convictions, the case was less than a success for the Obama era Justice Department prosecutors who launched the case against the influential Republican party boss nearly three years prior.
