(We Chinese in America Media Editor Tang Zhao, January 25, 2022) Schwartz, the owner of a New Jersey-based company that operates residential care centers in 11 states across the country, was arrested after the company owed $29.5 million in wages and taxes. (Screenshot of NBC TV)

Joseph Schwartz, the owner of a New Jersey-based company that operates residential care centers in 11 states, has been arrested on the grounds that the company he runs owes money and taxes on a massive scale, totaling $29.5 million.

NSW-based Skyline Management Group operates 95 residential care centers across 11 states and employs 15,000 people.

In 2020, five employees from nursing care centers in Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota sued the company collectively. It turned out that some employees found that although their salary slips were deducted by their employers for health insurance, they found out when they saw a doctor that they didn't have health insurance at all.

Further investigation by prosecutors found that Schwartz's wrongdoing went far beyond that; matters related to withholding employee wages, including employment taxes, unemployment insurance, 401K plans and other payments due to employers, Schwartz said. They have largely escaped them, and they have not truthfully filed financial reports related to their 401K plans, all of which are intentional.

Prosecutors allege that between mid-2017 and mid-2018, Schwartz evaded $29.5 million in tax evasion that amounted to unpaid wages; Schwartz, 62, from Suffern, New York, was arrested on the 20th.

Prosecutors said that, whether it was intentionally not withholding, not accounting, or not paying employment tax penalties, each could be punished by up to five years in prison and a combined fine of up to $10,000; as for evasion of unemployment insurance, it was Up to five years in prison; up to ten years in prison for maliciously deceiving a 401K plan.

In addition to this case, Nebraska prosecutors also charged on the 20th that Schwartz had defrauded the Medicaid program by operating a nursing care center in the state.

In addition to the four states involved in the case, Schwartz's Skyline operates resident care centers in Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New South Wales, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.

(Source: Compiled from Online Information)