by Jeroslyn JoVonn
December 20, 2024
Peter Thomas is headed to prison for 18 months after pleading guilty to tax fraud.
The Real Housewives of Atlanta alum Peter Thomas is headed to prison for 18 months after pleading guilty to tax fraud.
The Neighborhood Talk reports that a reporter at the federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina, announced Thomas’ sentence following the verdict. In addition to prison time, Thomas must pay $2.5 million in restitution fees and undergo two years of supervised release.
Following his sentence, Thomas, the ex-husband of RHOA star Cynthia Bailey, was friendly with the reporter who asked him for clarification on the verdict. It came one day after Thomas took to Instagram to warn, “All young business owners, please learn from my mistake.”
“I’ll be making an appearance in the United States government federal courthouse here in Charlotte, North Carolina, to face the music,” he explained in the video message. “The music of … consistently withholding taxes for [my]businesses [for]over ten years.”
“I thought it was something that I could rectify by getting on that payment plan and paying it. But it doesn’t work like that,” he added.
The charges against the Bar One owner stem from his failure to pay employment taxes for his businesses. Instead, he spent nearly $375,000 on travel and ride-sharing services and $250,000 on luxury goods from brands like Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Givenchy.
“Thomas’s flagrant violation of his federal payroll tax obligations over many years that served to unjustly enrich his companies and himself by more than $2.5 million and deprive the federal government funds used to provide important retirement and disability benefits to employees,” a memo from a federal prosecutor reportedly read.
Thomas was reportedly “motivated by greed,” the memo stated, adding that “Thomas defied the tax laws, expanding his business, hiring more employees, increasing overhead and adding more business locations at the expense of his legal obligations.”
The 18-month sentence comes after Thomas pleaded guilty to failing to pay trust fund taxes, having been accused of tax evasion for several of his businesses between 2017 and 2023.
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