Gazette: “Porn chain owes $261,486 in sales tax”

Today’s Gazette reports:

Porn chain owes $261,486 in sales tax

State revenue officials have slapped a hefty tax lien on the company that runs a King Street porn store for unpaid sales taxes, making the company one of the state’s top 100 sales tax delinquents.

Capital Video Corp. owes the state Department of Revenue $261,486 in sales taxes, according to a filing Monday in the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds. The back taxes cover a 10-month period in 2008…

The unpaid taxes are tied to more than a dozen businesses owned and run by Capital Video Corp. in the state, including Amazing.Net on King Street, and the money represents more than $2 million in sales, according to state officials.

See also:

Gazette: “Porn company promises to pay delinquent taxes” (6/25/09)
Lesley S. Rich, an attorney for the Cranston, R.I.-based company, said Wednesday that its porn-store chain bounced a few checks and fell behind in sales tax payments to the state last year…

“We’re behind, but we have a pay-out plan with them,” Rich said in a phone interview. “I think we’re paying a couple checks a month. We’re just catching up.”

Providence Journal Archives: Kenneth Guarino’s Mob Ties, Criminal Past, Global Empire
Guarino has had past run-ins with the law. In June 1985, he pleadedguilty to federal tax-evasion charges. He served three months in prisonand was fined $5,000.

In 1980, Guarino was arrested with 44 others in gambling raids in 12Rhode Island communities, and charged with operating an organized-crimegambling business. Seven years later, in 1987, he pleaded no contest tobookmaking charges and was fined $250.

Capital Video Owner Kenneth Guarino “was associated with Natale Richichi, a capo in the Gambino family of La Cosa Nostra”
Guarino in 1979 began to pay ‘tribute’ to Richichi to fend offextortion attempts and to assist Guarino with other business matterswhere Richichi’s influence as a capo might benefit Guarino… The totalamount of the payments is in dispute, but between July 1985 andSeptember 1995, Guarino paid Richichi at least $1,728,000 in cash…

In January 1997, Guarino, as part of a plea agreement, pled guilty onlyto the charge of conspiracy to evade taxes. He was sentenced to sixteenmonths in prison, eleven of which were served in a halfway house, andfined $250,000…

An Account of the Working Conditions at Capital Video Headquarters
Here is an account of conditions at Capital Video’s Cranston, RI headquarters, as posted to industry gossip site Luke Is Back (explicitsite) on 2/24/05. Met-Cap Management and Metro, along with CapitalVideo, are three of the affiliated companies through which porn kingpinKenneth Guarino does business.

Metro…fired veteran artist Noel Campos last year. Justwhy is still the question; was it that Noel dared to use his earned”Paid Time Off” and raised Kenny’s ire at not working 40 hours everyweek? Jiffy Lube rick told Noel “Metro is cutting back,” but Metropromptly increased it’s production schedule over 100%, with Alan beingthe only artist left at metro. For all his hard work in the art dept.,Alan was promised a raise by Kenny last summer…

Well, thatraise Kenny PROMISED was never lived up to by Kenny, …Les [Rich,general counsel], or anyone else who signs checks at Metro…

Metro is a f—ing nightmare to work for; where hard work is rewarded with f— you…

Did youknow about the quarter million in product former metro salesman Sethhad delivered to himself no charge?… All this while Kenny’s lastfeckless former GM Neil Persky was sniffing mexican warehousemen’sbackpacks for onsie-twosies out the back door? How Seth was shacking upwith metro contract star Annmarie, oops, former contract star, too muchcocaine…

The roof catastrophically leaked into the new bldg. which Kenny & Les Rich signed off on…

Soyou can add the name Kenny Guarino, Bently-driving owner of Metro tothat list of deadbeats you have been reporting on. Kenny makes falsepromises to his employees and then pays off in lies and betrayal.

Metro sales are so bad that Kenny was required to put Metro payroll on his credit card for the first time last week…

Guarino: No Porn for Daughter (1994)
…Mr.Guarino is a rich man. He lives in a luxurious home on NarragansettBay, drives a Mercedes, and–federal prosecutors in the Las Vegas casesay–has numerous foreign bank accounts…

Boston Globe Profiled Kenneth Francis Guarino in 1983
Guarino,who entered the business as a teenager, had risen to become one of thenation’s top pornography dealers in less than 10 years. His companieswere grossing an estimated $3 million a year, and every month Guarinowas depositing an average of $175,000 into their bank accounts…

Inaddition to inspecting Guarino’s seized records, the FBI interviewed anaccountant who had worked on Guarino’s financial books from sometime in1973 to February 1978. According to a confidential report on thatinterview, the former accountant, William J. Martin 3d, told the FBIthat “Guarino was skimming over a half-million dollars a year” from hiscorporations and bookstores.

At the time that the formeraccountant made the charge, he was under indictment in Connecticut forembezzling more than $146,000 in four separate checks from hisfull-time employer, General Dynamics, in early 1978. Martin, accordingto the confidential report, later told the FBI that he had embezzledthe money on orders from Guarino because Guarino needed money “foranticipated legal fees.” However, Martin said he would not testifyagainst Guarino in the case because he feared for his safety…