The Latitude 360 entertainment venue operated near The Avenues mall. It closed in 2016. | News4Jax
Published on April 11, 2024 at 11:12 am
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The former owner of Latitude 360 has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for failing to send the IRS money withheld from employees’ paychecks.
Brent Brown also was ordered to pay more than $3.8 million in restitution to the IRS, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
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Brown established his first Latitude business, operating as Latitude 360, in Jacksonville in June 2010. Other restaurant and entertainment complexes operated in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and Albany, New York, although that location never opened to the public.
Brown’s businesses withheld payroll taxes from employee’s paychecks but never directed the money to the IRS, prosecutors said.
Between tax years 2013 and 2016, Brown failed to pay more than $5.3 million in payroll taxes, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. He also diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay his personal expenses, including rent on a luxury apartment in Manhattan and tuition at a preparatory school, according to the news release.
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“With this sentencing, Brent Brown was reminded that the responsibility to pay federal taxes is a legal obligation and not a game,” said Lani I. Rosado-Espinal, IRS-criminal investigation acting special agent in charge.
Brown pleaded guilty Jan. 11.
Randy comes to Jacksonville from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, where as metro editor, he led investigative coverage of the Parkland school shooting that won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for public service. He has spent more than 40 years in reporting and editing positions in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio and Florida.
