Tax Cheat Pleads Guilty

A Defi­ance County man has pleaded guilty in U.S. Dis­trict Court to a bill of infor­ma­tion charg­ing him with five counts of tax eva­sion.

Michael W. Blake entered the guilty plea on Fri­day. Blake is now set to be sen­tenced July 28 by Judge Jef­frey Helmick, who accepted his plea to the charges and found him guilty.

Fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors say Blake under­re­ported his income by $224,111 between 2006 and 2010 and failed to pay the gov­ern­ment $66,517 in taxes.

He faces sub­stan­tial prison time at his sentencing.