A 56-year-old Yorba Linda man already serving an eight-year federal prison sentence for tax evasion has pleaded guilty in Orange County to tax and workers’ compensation insurance fraud, court records show.
Luis Enrique Perez accepted a plea bargain Thursday from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and admitted to nine counts of fraud and two counts of false statements to determine workers’ compensation insurance fraud, all misdemeanors. Felony charges were reduced from felonies to misdemeanors to resolve the case.
Perez was sentenced to one year in jail and was credited with that amount of time already served. He was ordered to pay $138,725.52 in restitution.
Perez, who was the owner of several temporary employee staffing companies, was charged in 2018.
Co-defendant Scott Wesley Smith is due in court on the case Nov. 14. Smith worked for Perez in 2013 and later formed Titan Personnel Inc., prosecutors said.
Orange County prosecutors dismissed the case against Veronica Lake, 55, on Oct. 14. Her attorney, James Sweeney, said she was just an employee of Perez’s, had nothing to do with the fraud and helped federal prosecutors in their case against Perez.
Perez was sentenced to eight years in federal prison for evading nearly $30 million in taxes. U.S. District Judge Kenly Kiya Kato ordered Perez to pay $38 million in restitution.
In the federal case, Perez admitted that his companies failed to pay payroll taxes from May 2009 to January 2017, according to federal prosecutors.