Another day, another former reality star finding themselves in some serious legal trouble.
Peter Thomas, formerly of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, has pled guilty to tax fraud, according to People, and has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. The ex-husband of former Real Housewife Cynthia Bailey will reportedly undergo two years of supervised release and pay $2.5 million in restitution following his release.
Fans may remember Thomas as the owner of Bar One restaurants, and according to a sentencing memo from federal prosecutors obtained by The Baltimore Banner, he “failed to pay millions in taxes” and “withheld from his workers’ paychecks at his restaurants.”
“Thomas’s flagrant violation of his federal payroll tax obligations over many years that served to unjustly enrich his companies and himself by more than $2.5 million and deprive the federal government funds used to provide important retirement and disability benefits to employees,” the memo reads.
The memo continues to detail that Thomas is “motivated” by greed, citing that instead of paying employment taxes, he “spent just under $375,000 on travel and ride-sharing expenditures and over $250,000 on luxury goods from Neiman Marcus, Prada, Louis Vuitton and Givenchy, among others.”
Thomas pled guilty over the summer to one felony count of failure to pay over trust fund taxes. Still, several lawsuits “remain open” against his Bar One in Baltimore, per the Banner.
Thomas was a fixture on The Real Housewives of Atlanta during Bailey’s 11-year tenure on the series. Since then, Thomas has even appeared on The Real Housewives of Potomac, as two seasons ago he was planning on going into business with Dr. Wendy Osefo.
Thomas took to Instagram the day before his sentencing, sharing a video to his followers explaining that he is “facing the music” after pleading guilty to witholding taxes. “Public announcement, most people are confused when it come to paying withholding taxes, I am here to set the record straight, he wrote in the caption. Warning business owners, he wrote, “Yes you will go to jail, test you still have to pay the taxes also, jail don’t mean that the taxes is forgiven. All young business owner, please learn for my mistake.”