https://www.wlwt.com/article/john-franklin-brock-prison-tax-evasion-money-laundering/45973974

A Cincinnati man who operated multiple businesses has been sentenced to prison for tax evasion and money laundering.

John Franklin Brock, 60, was sentenced Tuesday to one year and one day in prison and ordered to pay a $40,000 fine after previously pleading guilty to tax evasion and money laundering.

Brock pleaded guilty to the charges in July of 2022.

Brock was charged in June, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of Ohio.

According to court documents, Brock ran multiple businesses, including UT Service, UTS Inc. and Wolverine Wireless Inc., which performs cellular tower construction and decommissioning services and Impact LLC d/b/a Pac-Telephone, a prison inmate communications business; and 6 Bayview Blvd. LLC, which performed money transmission services for his prison inmate communications business.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of Ohio, Brock operated all of these businesses out of a storefront in Cincinnati.

The release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of Ohio states that from January 2016 to at least January 2020, Brock willfully attempted to evade and defeat income and tax due and owing and the assessment of taxes associated with his businesses.

The attorney's office stated that Brock purposely created these companies by registering them as corporations or single-member LLCs through which related companies were obligated to report their separate income and losses, in some cases concealing his ownership and using names of others or aliases.

The attorney's office stated Brock would try to evade the payment of corporate income tax for UT Service and UTS. Brock failed to file corporate tax returns for UT Service and UTS, and instead, he filed corporate income tax returns for Wolverine, reporting minimal to no income, the attorney's office said.

In his 2016 and 2017 corporate tax returns for Wolverine, the attorney's office states Brock reported $2 and $0.00 in taxable income, but when applying for a small business loan, Brock submitted tax returns for UTS Inc. that showed a net income of over $1 million in 2016 and over $420,000 in 2017.

Brock also applied for a money transmission terminal for 6 Bayview Blvd. to MoneyGram using the alias Alan Coleman, where he listed himself as the "landlord."

When talking with MoneyGram, Brock said his company bought fish and was based in the port and didn't disclose the transfers were originated by inmates. Brock then used the transmission terminal to send and receive interstate money transfers of over $225,000 associated with his prison communication business.