By Bill Finley
Ron Paolucci, whose Loooch Racing Stables finished second nationally in wins in 2017 and 2018, pled guilty on Feb. 28 to two counts of tax fraud and tax evasion in a federal court in Texas. Paolucci faces up to eight years in prison on the two counts, as well as $350,000 in fines. He will also be required to pay $13 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.
The story was first reported by The Paulick Report.
The prosecution alleged that, during a seven-year period from 2014 through 2020, Paolucci failed to pay the IRS over $13 million in withholdings for income, Medicare and Social Security that he took from employees at companies he owned, including American Management Staffing. Paolucci's employees allegedly received false W-2 statements from Paolucci's companies that showed that taxes had been withheld from their pay and sent to the IRS. Instead, it has been alleged that Paolucci took $13,561,116 out of his employees' checks during the period in question but never sent the money to the IRS.
Paolucci also admitted to defrauding the government when it came to his own earnings Paolucci admitted that he failed to report more than $17 million he received in compensation from AMS from 2015 to 2020. On his 2017 taxes, Paolucci reported that his wages for the year were $0 when he actually took in $3.3 million from his company AMS.
Loooch Racing Stables operated from 2011 to 2018 and piled up hundreds of wins, many of them on the Ohio racing circuit. He had 160 wins in 2017 and 215 in 2018. Loooch won a total of 871 races. At times, Paolucci branched out and was a partner on a handful of top horses, among them Ria Antonia (Rockport Harbor), the winner, via disqualification, of the 2013 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies.
Paolucci was outspoken and in 2018 said he was leaving the sport because he felt he was being mistreated.
“This is a game that says it wants guys like me,” he said. “But it really doesn't. I speak my mind, run where I want to, I don't believe in the politics.”
Paolucci disbanded Loooch Racing but continued to run horses under his own name. Under the name of Ron Paolucci Racing LLC, Paolucci had 799 starts and 191 wins in 2019. He had 45 more wins in 2020 and won 10 races in 2021 . He had just one win in 2022 and has not started a horse since May 17 of last year when he had a start at Thistledown.
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