Published: May 11, 2009 09:42 am      

Former Image Entry VP charged with fraud

By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

A former vice president for finance at Image Entry (now Sourcecorp) in London has tendered a plea agreement and a waiver of indictment in U.S. District Court in Dallas after being charged with wire fraud and securities fraud, as well as tax evasion allegedly committed during Image Entry’s sale to Sourcecorp.

London’s Bill Deaton was CEO of Image Entry at the time of the sale.

Michael Wayne Sulfridge, formerly of London and now living in Union Grove, Ala., according to an information filed in the Dallas court, conspired with Image Entry CEO “and others” to devise a scheme to fraudulently inflate Image Entry’s earnings in an effort to increase an “earn out” payment from Sourcecorp, a Dallas firm, that was to go to Deaton.

The conspiracy allegedly happened between, February 2000 and Dec. 31, 2004.

Sulfridge is scheduled for arraignment on May 15 in Dallas.

The information alleges that Sulfridge and Deaton, as well as others, would inflate the income of Image Entry by billing for work that the company had not done.

It also claims that they would sign false certifications regarding Image Entry’s statements.

A part of the conspiracy, the information stated, was that Deaton would pay Sulfridge extra salary and bonuses based “upon his success in fraudulently inflating Image Entry’s earnings and Deaton’s ‘earn out’ payment.” The information alleges that that money was to be paid from money that did not come from Image Entry, but from other accounts under control of Deaton.

Data regarding the income and expenses of Image Entry were transmitted between London and Dallas via interstate commerce, the information charges.

In the second count of the information, Sulfridge was charged with tax evasion.

It alleges that during the year 2004 he “did willfully attempt to evade and defeat a large part of the income tax due” from him and his wife.

It states he prepared, signed and caused to be signed, “a false and fraudulent joint U.S. Individual Income Tax Return.”

According to the information, he reported income of $52,335 and paid $5,134 in taxes, but he had actually taken in $392,617 and would have had to pay $106,925.