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Quad-City Times - Iowa
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Magazine scam suspect faces tax debt
By Thomas Geyer / QUAD-CITY TIMES
July 18, 2002
Karleen Hillery, former president of a company implicated in a Wisconsin crash that killed
seven young people selling magazine subscriptions, now has Uncle Sam to satisfy.
The federal government has placed a tax lien on Hillery’s Coal Valley, Ill., home to
collect back personal taxes totaling $213,481.40. The amount dates back to the tax period
ending Dec. 31, 1998, according to court documents.
Hillery’s home at 2 Pinehurst Court has an assessed value, which typically is a third of
market value, of $122,425. Officials with the Henry County Assessor’s Office said Hillery
is late on making her first property tax payment of $4,083.19. She owes $8,166.38 in property
taxes on the house.
Of interest to the Internal Revenue Service is the market value of the home, which the
Henry County Assessor places at $367,275, or three times the assessed value.
Hillery, 38, is being sued by the Illinois Attorney General’s office for allegedly defrauding
70 consumers nationwide through a magazine sales scam.
Also named in the suit, filed May 2, are Hillery’s most recent companies, Circulation I and
Circulation II, both of Rock Island.
The Illinois Attorney General’s Office located Hillery in Glendale, Ariz. The lawsuit alleges
that between March 2001 and February, she hired college students to sell magazine
subscriptions for $25 to $40, but no magazines arrived and people who were solicited
could not get refunds.
The lawsuit claims six Illinois residents and 64 other consumers in 14 states were cheated.
Hillery also previously owned Subscriptions Plus Inc., which processed magazine
subscriptions for Y.E.S., or Youth Employment Services. Y.E.S. was owned by Hillery’s
former husband, Choan Lane of Long Grove, Iowa.
Seven Y.E.S. employees died in a 1999 van crash in Wisconsin while selling subscriptions
for Y.E.S. Among the dead was 16-year-old Marshall Roberts of DeWitt, Iowa. Five
others were seriously injured in the accident.
Lane was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison in October 2000 on four criminal charges
involving his workers.
The driver of the van, Jeremy Holmes of Clinton, Iowa, is serving a seven-year
prison sentence on charges of vehicular homicide.
Thomas Geyer can be contacted at (563) 383-2328 or tgeyer@qctimes.com.
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