JUPITER EXOTIC CAR DEALER FACES TAX CHARGES
State says Bubba’s exotic-car business hasn’t paid sales taxes.
JUPITER — The owner of a Jupiter automotive business specializing in exotic cars is facing a charge of defrauding the state of more than $92,000 in sales taxes, according to a town police report.
Thomas Edward Lloyd Jr., 56, is accused of failing to remit between $20,000 and $100,000 in Florida sales taxes. He was released from the Palm Beach County Jail on Thursday after posting a $5,000 bond.
The alleged sales tax theft was revealed after Jupiter police received several complaints that Bubba’s East Coast Rods and Customs of Florida was refusing to return customers’ vehicles and keeping their payments while failing to do the expected work.
Records show that Lloyd pleaded no contest on May 19, 2017, to a charge of obtaining money under false pretenses in Fairfax, Va., and was handed a 12-month suspended sentence after a customer accused him of pocketing $55,000.
Lloyd declined comment when reached on his cellphone Monday. Brian T. Pakett, Lloyd’s West Palm Beach-based attorney, said his client has pleaded not guilty to the sales tax charge and is looking forward to fighting the accusation in court.
“Show me a successful business and I will show you a few disgruntled customers,” Pakett said. “My client does exceptional work, but unfortunately, there’s always going to be a few customers that are not satisfied.”
According to a Palm Beach Post story published in August 2014, Lloyd and his son, Jonathan “Bubba” Thomas Lloyd, opened the Jupiter store on Commerce Way in March 2014.
“The kindhearted Southern gentlemen are what brought us here,” Thomas Lloyd told The Post about relocating to Jupiter after 12 years operating the business in Northern Virginia. “It matches my
and Bubba’s personality, and we found ourselves losing that in Virginia.”
What Lloyd didn’t say was that he was under investigation in Virginia for allegedly taking $55,000 from a customer in July 2013 for work he never performed.
Lloyd, a Palm Beach Gardens resident, was arrested as a fugitive by the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office on Feb. 29, 2016, to face a felony charge in Virginia of obtaining money by false pretense. That charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor, resulting in the 12-month suspended sentence.
Jupiter police began their investigation of Lloyd in February 2017 after a customer said he provided Lloyd and his son more than $30,000 to find and purchase a vehicle they would restore, the report said. The work was never performed and the money was not returned.
Another customer said he paid the men $15,000 for repairs that were mostly not made. When he asked for his vehicle back after about one year, the Lloyds refused to give it back, the report said.
A third customer filed a 2016 complaint with Jupiter police, stating she paid $22,500 to have her RollsRoyce repaired, but the work was never completed, even though the Lloyds had the vehicle in their possession for more than 10 months.
About nine other complaints made against the business had a “recurring theme” that revolved around the Lloyds taking a customer’s vehicle along with payment, failing to do the work, then “fraudulently (alleging) that they owe more money and subsequently refuses to release the vehicle,” according to the arrest report.
A review of the business’s finances showed it had not paid $92,504.69 it had collected from customers in sales taxes.
The detective who investigated the case said that total was a “conservative” estimate of what allegedly had been stolen.