Soupman Inc. (fka SOUPQ)

[Millions242]

Soupman CFO sentenced to 9 months for tax evasion

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The Soupman executive who pleaded guilty to tax evasion is headed to prison.

Robert N. Bertrand, 63, the chief financial officer with Soupman Inc., a Staten Island-based company which licenses the names and recipes of Al Yeganeh, the real-life "Soup Nazi" character from the classic "Seinfeld" TV series, was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment Thursday in Brooklyn federal court, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

The defendant was also given one year of supervised post-release and ordered to pay more than $78,000 in restitution, officials said.

Bertrand, a Connecticut resident, previously admitted he short-changed the government of nearly $600,000 in tax revenue.

Last year, he was charged under a 20-count indictment with failure to pay Medicare, Social Security and federal income taxes, authorities said.

Bertrand only pleaded guilty to the first count of the indictment as part of the plea deal.

Between 2010 and 2014, Bertrand paid Soupman workers on the side in unreported cash amounts and compensated certain employees with large, unreported stock awards, officials said.

Soupman's unreported cash and stock compensation totaled more than $2.8 million, resulting in a loss of about $594,000 in tax revenue, said authorities.

Bertrand never reported that employee compensation to the IRS and didn't pay Medicare, Social Security and federal income taxes on the cash payments or the stock awards, said authorities.

Bertrand failed to do so despite an external auditor warning him in 2012 those payments should be reported to the IRS, officials said.

"Bertrand has been held to account for abusing his position as the CFO of a publicly-traded company in a long-running scheme that cheated the nation's treasury out of hundreds of thousands of dollars," stated U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue.
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Soupman exec gets prison for tax evasion

This tax case has now been consomme-ted.

“Soup Nazi” exec Robert Bertrand was sentenced to nine months in a federal lockup Thursday, his penalty for a nearly $600,000 tax-evasion scheme involving the Staten Island-based chain made famous by “Seinfeld.”

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Soupman CFO guilty of $600K tax evasion
Soupman CFO guilty of $600K tax evasion
“I did make a mistake and I am remorseful for it,” Bertrand told a Brooklyn federal judge at his sentencing.

“I’ve embarrassed myself, my family,” said Bertrand, who admittedly failed to collect taxes on more than $2.8 million in cash and, er, stock compensation between 2010 and 2014.

Bertrand ran the chain of “Soupman” shops, whose expansion was? inspired? ?the famous 1995 “Soup Nazi” episode of Seinfeld, ?with its enduring catch-phrase “No soup for you!”

The ?”?Seinfeld?”? bit was itself inspired by sour-tempered real-life Midtown restaurateur Ali “Al” Yeganeh, who ?inspired the character portrayed on the sitcom by ??Larry Thomas. Yeganeh then capitalized on his fame by licensing his likeness and recipes?. But the chain filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2017.

Bertrand, of Norwalk, Conn., said in court Thursday that he has resorted to driving for Uber since his arrest on the tax scam a year ago; he still must pay the feds $78,515 in back taxes.

“This was not a simple fraud,” Judge Pamela Chen told him. “It is serious.

“It is also not victimless,” she added. “It’s obvious that when people don’t pay their taxes, the victims are all of us.”

But Bertrand’s lawyer, Michael Weil, insisted that his client was not motivated by greed.

“He did it to keep the company afloat,” and to pay his employees, he said of his client’s tax shenanigans.

http://www.silive.com/news/2018/04/soupman_cfo_sentenced_to_9_mon.html

https://nypost.com/2018/04/12/soupman-exec-gets-prison-for-tax-evasion/