The former owner of a Waimanalo dog-breeding facility that had its animals seized because of squalid conditions is facing state tax evasion charges.
An Oahu grand jury returned an indictment Thursday charging Vernon Luke, owner of the now-defunct Bradley International Inc., with six counts of evading state general excise taxes for 2007-2012 and six counts of failing to get a general excise tax license, supply the state information about his business or file a tax return over the same period. It is unknown whether the charges are related to the dog-breeding operation.
Evading general excise taxes is a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
The other charges are misdemeanors each punishable by up to a year in jail and a $25,000 fine.
A lawyer for Bradley pleaded no contest on behalf of the company in December 2011 to 153 counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty. The state had charged Bradley with one count of second-degree animal cruelty for each dog that survived the Hawaiian Humane Society’s seizure from the Waimanalo breeding facility in February of that year.
A District Court judge in Kaneohe fined the company the maximum $2,000 for each charge, for a total $306,000 fine, and ordered the company to repay the Hawaiian Humane Society $370,701 for its cost of recovering and caring for the dogs before adopting them out. The judge also assessed Bradley $8,415 in court fees.
Bradley paid none of the fines, restitution and fees because Luke dissolved the company, leaving it with no assets.
The Hawaiian Humane Society said Luke and his daughter, who were officers of Bradley, later opened a similar operation in Mountain View outside Hilo.
David Lee Becker, Bradley’s former manager, also pleaded no contest to 153 counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty. A state judge sentenced him in December 2012 to six months in jail.
By that time, Becker had already been in custody for at six months from the time he was picked up in Las Vegas and extradited to Honolulu.
