ELLSWORTH, Maine — A Lamoine man indicted last December on charges related to his alleged failure to pay state income taxes pleaded not guilty when he appeared in court this week, according to court documents.
Stephen E. Wardman, 64, is facing 18 criminal charges in Hancock County Unified Criminal Court, court documents indicate. He is accused by the Maine attorney general’s office of not paying state income taxes in Maine from 2009 through 2014. He faces three charges for each of those six years in which he allegedly did not pay income taxes — tax evasion, failure to pay income taxes, and failure to file a tax return.
Wardman works as a merchant mariner and claimed to be a Florida resident during the six-year period, according to court documents. He pleaded not guilty to each of the charges when he was arraigned in court on May 3.
A tax evasion charge is a Class C felony that, with a conviction, carries a sentence of up to five years in prison and a possible $5,000 fine. The charges of failure to pay income taxes and failure to file a tax return are Class D misdemeanors, with each count punishable by a maximum possible penalty of 364 days in jail and a fine of $2,000.
Little more information about the case was available Friday. Wardman earned more than $2,000 income in each of the years from 2009 to 2014, court documents indicate, but what his total income was for each of those years was unavailable.
Gregg Bernstein, the assistant attorney general who is prosecuting the case, said Friday in an email that he was unable to comment on the case. An attempt Friday to contact Wardman’s defense attorney, Jay McCloskey of Portland, was unsuccessful.
