United States v. Jon Hartman

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

After Jon Hartman and Dan Ott co-founded Spectrum Tool & Design, they divvied up management responsibilities. Ott was supposed to handle the company's payroll taxes, a task that required him to withhold federal taxes from employees' wages and send the money to the Internal Revenue Service on a regular basis. When Spectrum encountered financial difficulties, however, Ott failed to pay the taxes *760 several times in 2004 and 2005. After Spectrum went bankrupt, the government sued Hartman to recover the unpaid taxes, and the district court granted the government's motion for…