A 40-year-old man from Ventura, who previously owned the Doyle Tax Group in Thousand Oaks, has been arrested and faces charges of grand theft and embezzlement, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday.
Colin Patrick Doyle surrendered himself on Jan. 3 at the Thousand Oaks Police Department after an eight-month investigation by the East County Forgery/Fraud Unit.
The victims in this case were hired by Doyle “to conduct a variety of tax related duties for their businesses, including reporting payroll taxes to the Internal Revenue Service,” the Sheriff’s news release stated. “The victims transferred money to the Doyle Tax Group which were then supposed to be provided to the IRS.”
In 2020, the victims received notices from the IRS regarding unpaid taxes, and their calls to Doyle about the notifications went unanswered.
An independent tax company was hired in Nov. 2021 to research the issue and found that Doyle never paid the IRS, as he’d been hired to do. Several months later, the victims filed a report with the Thousand Oaks Police Department.
“Through a variety of law enforcement investigative techniques, Detectives with the East County Forgery/Fraud Unit discovered that between January 2020 and December 2021, Doyle received nearly $100,000.00 from the victims which were never provided to the IRS,” the release stated.
Doyle was booked and his bail was set at $100,000. He is due to be arraigned on Jan. 18.
Anyone who has previously hired Doyle and the Doyle Tax Group for Financial services and believes they might be the victim of a crime is encouraged to contact Detective Michael Melucci at 805-494-8231 or by email at michael.melucci@ventura.org.