Tax scam nets 32-month prison sentence for one-time Jacksonville IT company CEO

The former CEO of a Jacksonville software company has been sentenced to 32 months in prison for tax evasion.

Jason Cory pleaded guilty in September and was ordered this week to a scheme that ended in 2019, the year he was replaced as the head of the company known then as SharedLabs that operated out of a historic Northbank office building.

Cory, 49, had used his post at the company to send money to a shell company, Gambit Matrix LLC, as faux payments for non-existent consulting work the U.S. Justice Department said in a release this week. He had also moved money there from a New York IT services company he used to work for, the agency said, so that between 2015 and 2018, about $1.5 million went into Gambit’s accounts to hide his income.

As part of the sentence this week, U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard told Cory he’d also have to pay $606,195 is restitution for the taxes he owed on that hidden income.

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Howard asked the federal Bureau of Prisons to try to have Cory locked up in Pensacola, saying he had experience in lawn care and was hoping to set up work there.