Developer ‘gets jail sentence and must pay $500k’

The president of a Utah-based development studio has been sentenced to six months prison and must pay half a million dollars, a news report claims.

David Rushton, whose LinkedIn profile cites him as the chief executive at Sensory Sweep Studios, was sentenced to tax fraud and racketeering.

As well as his six-month prison sentence, Rushton has been ordered to pay $516,816 in restitution, according to a report in regional paper Salt Lake Tribune.

He failed to pay state taxes in 2006 and 2007, and had incorrectly filed forms that provided him ‘fraudulent refunds’, prosecutors said.

Rushton is reported to have pleaded guilty to failing to file tax returns with intent to evade.

He has also been sentenced 72 months probation, is banned from money handling, and must perform 200 hours of community service.

His company, Sensory Sweep, was last year alleged to have not paid nearly 200 employees for over 100 days, to the tune of over $2 million.

Several purported employees at Sensory Sweep brought their objections to the public by launching a website which counted the number of days they had not been paid.

“Sensory Sweep demanded a lot from us,” the website read.

“We put our lives on hold for them. We worked shifts than ran long into the night, and then into the following morning. We sacrificed relationships for them. Marriages and families suffered because of them. They wanted the impossible from us, and that is exactly what we delivered. In return, they fed us lies and deception.”