Wake Forest beer, wine seller pleads guilty to embezzlement

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — A Wake Forest wine and beer store owner has plead guilty to several felony tax charges.

The North Carolina Department of Revenue says Joseph Patrick O’Keefe, 56, was president of Wine & Beer 101, Inc..

Between Jan. 1, 2012 and Sept. 30, 2018, NCDOR said O’Keefe aided and abetted the business to embezzle, misapply, and convert to its own use approximately more than $518,000 in North Carolina Sales Tax. 

NCDOR said O’Keefe had a duty to collect, hold in trust, and remit North Carolina and Wake County Sales Tax to the NCDOR. 

O’Keefe pleaded guilty in Wake County Superior Court to five counts of embezzlement of state property.

O’Keefe was sentenced to a 16-month minimum, 29-month maximum prison term. NCDOR said his sentence was suspended, and as a condition of probation O’Keefe was ordered to serve seven days in the custody of the North Carolina Division of Adult Corrections.

O’Keefe will be on house arrest with electronic monitoring for 60 days. He was also placed on supervised probation for 36 months and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. O’Keefe will also have to pay the remaining restitution in the amount of $268,776.14.

The charges against O’Keefe resulted from an investigation by special agents with the Department’s Criminal Investigations Division in Raleigh, and was prosecuted by the Special Prosecutions attorneys in the office of the Attorney General.