The owner of a Westminster-based sandblasting company pleaded not guilty Thursday to stealing from his workers, according to court documents.
Pavel Osokin, owner of Tri-County Sandblasting, was charged Friday with four counts of grand theft, two counts of receipt of portion of wages of workmen, a count of making a fraudulent statement to obtain or deny compensation and three counts of failure to collect, account for or pay taxes, all felonies. The Westminster resident also faces sentencing enhancements for aggravated white-collar crime between $100,000 to $500,000.
Osokin was arrested Christmas Eve and entered a plea in the jail courtroom in Santa Ana Thursday.
A recommended bail of $200,000 was denied and Osokin was ordered released while he is pending trial. He was ordered to return to court Jan. 8 for a pretrial hearing and cannot work on public contracts for the time being.
He is accused of stealing from union employees, as well as two individual workers, according to the criminal complaint.
An internal audit in March allegedly revealed the fraud, according to the complaint.
Messages left with the prosecutor who filed charges, Donde McCament, and the defendant’s attorney, William Weinberg, were not immediately returned.
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