TriBeCa Restaurant Owner Found Guilty On Tax Charges

The owner of a popular TriBeCa restaurant has pleaded guilty to evading more than $1 million in taxes, the Manhattan district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, announced yesterday.

The owner of Fresh restaurant on Reade Street, Eric Tevrow, reported less than 16% of the sales tax that was collected at the restaurant for about four years, officials said.

Tevrow also plead guilty to stealing money from the sales tax collected at two other downtown restaurants that he owned, Coast and Shore, which are now closed, officials said.

At Coast, Tevrow reported less than 8% of the sales tax collected between September 2004 and August 2005, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, Barbara Thompson, said. Tevrow did not report any of the sales tax collected at Shore between June 2003 and August 2004, she said.

While a majority of the about $1.1 million in tax money withheld by Tevrow came from sales tax, investigators found he also stole $133,312 in payroll taxes from Coast and Fresh. Tevrow will serve four months in prison on third-degree grand larceny charges, officials said.

As part of Tevrow's plea deal, he will have to pay back the $1.1 million he stole, as well as penalties and interest that could total more than $1 million, officials said.