Yoga business founder gets 4 years in prison after pleading guilty to tax charge

Gregory Gumucio, founder of the "Yoga to the People" chain, was sentenced to four years in prison for conspiring to defraud the IRS. He failed to pay over $2.5 million in taxes while operating a multimillion-dollar international yoga business

New York: An international yoga business founder whose chain of yoga studios promoted itself as “Yoga to the People” was sentenced on Monday to four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a tax charge.

Gregory Gumucio, 64, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by Judge John P Cronan, who also ordered him to pay US$ 2.7 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

---

In October, he pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to defraud the IRS, admitting that he had not paid over US$ 2.5 million in taxes from 2012 to 2020. “Gregory Gumucio built a profitable yoga empire and lived well off its success — but he refused to pay his taxes,” US Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.

Gumucio’s business, which generated over US$ 20 million in revenue, had operated in about 20 locations in the United States, including in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, California; Tempe, Arizona; Orlando, Florida; and cities in Colorado and Washington.

It also operated in studios in Spain and Israel and was seeking to expand to other countries when it closed four years ago.

When Gumucio was arrested two years ago, a prosecutor said he was the living in Cathlamet, Washington, and had been arrested 15 times. The prosecutors also said he had in the past used at least six aliases, three Social Security numbers and claimed three places of birth.