Freeport woman sent to prison for withholding taxes

A Freeport woman who pleaded guilty to withholding tax payments on several McDonald's restaurants she owned was sentenced Tuesday to spend six months in jail for her crimes.

Prosecutors said Lynn George Robinson, 52, failed to turn over more than $200,000 in required sales and withholding tax payments on several McDonald's restaurants she owned during the 1990s. In addition to her jail sentence, she must pay $278,678.48 in back taxes, penalties and interest, prosecutors said.

Robinson was found guilty by a jury in June 2008 of first-degree scheme to defraud, repeated failure to file personal income taxes and four counts of first degree criminal possession of a forged instrument.

Prosecutors said when Robinson failed to pay her taxes, state tax department issued tax warrants and put a lien on Robinson's Freeport home. Robinson soon lost the franchises and, in a 2001 bid to stave off foreclosure of her home and further conceal assets from tax officials, Robinson illegally sold the property to Leroy Nelson, an NYPD detective assigned to the Internal Affairs Bureau who was acting illegally as a straw buyer of the house. In order to make the sale, Robinson forged documents and provided them to the tax department to get the tax lien removed.