ALFRED, Maine — A former town official from Acton was sentenced Friday to three years in prison, with all but six months suspended and two years probation, according to a spokesman for the Maine attorney general’s office.
A jury found him guilty of 19 counts of tax evasion in September.
Richard Weymouth, 67, was found guilty of income, sales and use tax evasion from 2006 through 2012. He also was convicted of homestead exemption fraud.
After an eight-day trial in York County Superior Court, the jury found Weymouth evaded taxes by falsely claiming on tax documents that he lived and operated a business in New Hampshire, Maine Attorney General Janet Mills said in September.
Weymouth is a resident of Acton, where he was elected to several terms on the town’s budget committee and road committee. He also operated R.W. Construction Co., a snowplow and excavation business that plowed roads for the town of Acton, Mills said.
But for tax purposes, Weymouth claimed to reside with his mother in Rochester, New Hampshire, and used a post office box in Milton Mills, New Hampshire.
Weymouth evaded Maine and federal income taxes during certain years between 2006 through 2012 by failing to report most of the income he earned from his business, Mills said in September.
In addition, he evaded state sales and use taxes on his purchases of several trucks and heavy equipment for his business by falsely claiming in tax documents that he was a legal resident of New Hampshire and that his trucks and equipment were not stored in Maine.
Weymouth paid about $42,000 in back Maine taxes — including tax, interest and penalties — as he was going to trial.
Tim Feeley, spokesman for the Maine attorney general’s office, said Friday that Weymouth paid all of his tax obligations in full prior to trial, so no restitution was ordered.
BDN staff reporter Dawn Gagnon contributed to this report.