State charges claim Everett yacht broker didn’t pay sales taxes

Published 10:42 pm Tuesday, May 27, 2008

EVERETT — An Everett yacht broker who is vice commodore of the Everett Yacht Club and a former Lynnwood police officer was charged Tuesday with theft and could face 10 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors allege Ronald J. Sperry, 59, failed to pay nearly $359,000 in sales tax he collected from late 2004 through 2007.

The man sold yachts through his businesses, Everett Yacht Sales in the 1300 block of W. Marine View Drive and Hanan Yachts of Seattle. Sperry is listed as vice commodore on the Everett Yacht Club’s Web site.

Sperry was charged Tuesday in Snohomish County Superior Court with felony theft of sales tax and filing false state tax returns, said Mike Gowrylow, a state Department of Revenue spokesman. The case was brought by the Criminal Justice Division of the Washington State Attorney General’s Office at the request of the Department of Revenue.

Sperry reported about $5.5 million in sales to the Department of Licensing but less than a quarter of that to the Department of Revenue, according to court documents.

He allegedly pocketed the sales tax paid to him by customers of the yachts he sold, Gowrylow said. He also allegedly was under-reporting the 10 percent commissions he made on those sales, which are subject to business and occupation tax.

Sperry told state ­investigators he had lost most of his records. They were able to reconstruct his sales activity by examining records necessary to transfer titles of the yachts he sold, according to court papers.

Sperry once was a police officer in Lynnwood and Winslow on Bainbridge Island. In 1985 he was charged with first-degree theft and fired from the Lynn­wood Police Department, the court documents said. Sperry was convicted, sentenced to community service, fined and ordered to pay restitution.

His problems with the state Department of Revenue date to 1999, when he was accused of failing to file the proper tax forms for his newly opened yacht business, the documents said. That year, a tax warrant was issued for Sperry for more than $35,000.

He’s accused of continuing a pattern of delinquent filing and partial payments until 2001, when officials placed a levy against his bank account, the documents said. He’s continued to fail paying taxes the state insists it is owed.

In interviews with investigators in November, December and January, Sperry allegedly admitted under-reporting sales to the Department of Revenue since a May 2002 fire at his business, the documents said. The fire destroyed about half of the broker’s inventory at a dock in Seattle’s Lake Union.

Investigators allege Sperry has been underpaying taxes since his business opened a decade ago.

If convicted, Sperry could face up to a decade in prison, a $20,000 fine and restitution, Gowrylow said.

Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com