An Ogden businessman who was fined $30,000 for paying kickbacks to a former buyer for Thiokol Inc. was sentenced to six months in prison and fined another $20,000 Tuesday on a federal tax charge.
Harold B. Stites, 52, admitted in March that he had failed to report $497,050 in income from Thiokol on a 1985 corporate tax return for his company, Thessco.In imposing the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Greene noted that Stites had also filed a false tax return while he was on probation in 1987.
"He wasn't forthcoming even after a charge was filed and he was placed on probation," Greene said. "It is very clear that he should be incarcerated."
Stites was fined and placed on probation after pleading guilty last year to paying a $1,000 kickback in return for Thessco receiving subcontracts for materials used at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
On the tax charge, prosecutors alleged that Stites had doctored company records to conceal sales to Thiokol. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Diamond said Stites' tax liability has been calculated at $276,461, excluding interest and penalties.
"What I did was plain dumb. What I did was wrong," Stites told the judge. "I did not think of the consequences."
But Greene said Stites' actions were the work of a clever person. "It was stupid to do it, but it was not stupidity," the judge said.
He ordered Stites to surrender to the U.S. marshall by June 8 and to pay the $20,000 fine at the rate of at least $1,000 per month or by the liquidation of assets.