Iceoplex owner faces additional tax charges
The majority owner of Iceoplex at Southpointe, who was indicted by a grand jury last year on charges of failing to pay payroll taxes for three years, is now facing 18 more counts for failure to pay the taxes for an additional three years.
In July 2014, Steven J. Lynch, 60, of Pittsburgh, was indicted on 11 counts – 10 on failure to pay, one on obstruction of the Internal Revenue Code, between 2008 and 2011. According to the original indictment, Lynch ordered staffers not to pay federal income taxes and Social Security and Medicare contributions that were withheld from employee paychecks. At the time the first indictment was delivered, it was estimated more than $1 million was owed in payroll taxes.
According to a superseding indictment filed Wednesday, the grand jury added another 18 counts against Lynch for failure to pay the taxes from January 2012 through April of this year.
Since its opening in May 1995, Iceoplex, at 114 Southpointe Boulevard, was the practice facility for the Pittsburgh Penguins until earlier this year. The 65,000-square-foot building also serves a variety of youth, adult and recreational hockey programs.
Lynch owns Iceoplex and other businesses, including a real estate company and The Boulevard at Iceoplex, a bar and restaurant that is part of the skating complex.
Lynch, an attorney, has been Iceoplex’s president since 2003. He served with the Penguins’ ownership group of Howard Baldwin, Morris Belzberg and Tom Ruta, which filed for bankruptcy in October 1998.
The current ownership group, Southpointe Rink Associates LP, purchased Iceoplex in 2001.
The Penguins relocated their practice facilities to the new UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry Township, Butler County, earlier this year.