Man pleads guilty to tax evasion

Hundreds of thousands in income, some from Lost Marsh restaurant, went unreported

A Dyer business owner who formerly operated the restaurant at the Lost Marsh Golf Course in Hammond, pleaded guilty Tuesday to tax evasion in federal court after failing to report more than $722,000 in income, some derived from the business, over a five-year period.

Daniel Urquiza, 45, is the former president of Lost Marsh Restaurant, and a shareholder of RSR Demolition, which shares a business address with Meyer’s Castle in Dyer and is owned by the Urquiza family. Lost Marsh Restaurant had been awarded contracts by the Hammond Port Authority while RSR had been awarded contracts by the cities of Hammond and Gary and others, according to charging documents filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Indiana.

By pleading guilty he agreed to waive his right to have a federal grand jury convene to seek an indictment and ultimately to a trial, according to court documents.

According to the charging documents, “Urquiza willfully attempted to evade the Internal Revenue Service’s assessment of his true tax liability by filing false federal tax returns from 2014 to 2016 that understated his gross income and failing to file a tax return for 2017 and 2018.”

Urquiza made personal expenditures directly from the bank accounts of Lost Marsh Restaurant, RSR Demolition and Meyer’s Castle for things like rent for luxury rental properties in downtown Chicago, expenses for races cars and other vehicles, vacations, shopping and recreation, the documents continue.

The charging documents state Urquiza willfully failed to report these personal expenditures as income on his individual tax returns. He also failed to report cash income obtained from 2014 to 2018 from Lost Marsh Restaurant and RSR Demolition by not depositing the cash obtained into bank accounts.

Urquiza also issued himself false E-2s from Lost Marsh Restaurant and RSR Demolition that understated the income received from these entities, according to the charging documents. Unreported income also included cash from scrap metal sold through RSR, it continued.

Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said the Hammond Port Authority parted ways with Urquiza and the Meyer Castle restaurant group more than three years ago.

“We went a different direction. Meyer’s Castle had been there for a while and we switched to a different group,” McDermott said.

A Nexis report shows Lost Marsh Restaurant Inc., lists Urquiza as president. The report appears to show the business filed for voluntary dissolution Sept. 1, 2019, in two requests. The requests were recorded Oct. 23, 2019, and Jan. 8, 2021. RSR Demolitions, which listed Urquiza as its manager in the report, appears to have been involuntarily dissolved after the business license was revoked in May 2019.

According to the charging documents, Urquiza tried to hide income derived from both businesses. The unreported income in 2014 was $88,719, in 2015 it was $96,327 and in 2016 it was $147,269, according to charging documents.

Urquiza failed to file an income tax return in 2017, when his income was $180,325 and in 2018 when his income was $209,569, documents allege.

According to the plea deal, Urquiza has taken responsibility for his actions and must continue to do so. In pleading guilty to evading assessment of federal income taxes, Urquiza faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a fine of $100,000 and three years of supervised release.

Due to his accepting responsibility for his conduct and not forcing the case to trial, he will receive a nonbinding-two-level reduction in his offense level at the discretion of the court, according to court records. Urquiza also is responsible for paying $145,432 in restitution. The restitution amount does not prevent the IRS from seeking further restitution, interest and penalties in civil court.

In accepting the plea deal Tuesday, Urquiza has waived his right to appeal, according to the documents.