Puyallup used-car dealer will serve jail time, pay $138K for tax theft
The manager of a now-closed used-car dealership in Puyallup has been sentenced to two weeks in jail for stealing tens of thousands of dollars of retail-sales tax from vehicle sales. He’ll also have to pay it all back to the state.
Stanley Joey Stevens, former manager of Puyallup Truck & RV Sales, pleaded guilty March 10 in Pierce County Superior Court to second-degree theft. Judge Timothy Ashcraft sentenced Stevens the same day and ordered him to pay $138,678 in restitution to the state Department of Revenue.
Stevens failed to remit those funds to the DOR while operating the business from June 2019 through January 2022, according to court documents.
The jail time Ashcraft imposed was near the low end of the standard sentencing range of 0-90 days. Stevens, 42, was previously convicted of first-degree theft in 2019 in Pierce County for depositing an altered check. He was convicted in 2011 in federal court of conspiracy to commit odometer fraud.
An investigator in the state Attorney General’s Office began looking at Puyallup Truck & RV Sales in 2021 after a Department of Revenue audit found it was underreporting revenue, according to charging documents. The dealership took in more than $1.2 million in 2017, court documents say, but reported $6,500 in gross revenue to the state.
The subsequent investigation found a number of problems with the business. Some customers who paid for vehicles with credit cards reported paying a service fee that was as high as 30 percent, according to the probable cause document, and the business routinely overcharged on sales tax. Records state it charged a 10 percent sales tax even though the actual retail sales tax in Puyallup was 9.9 percent from 2018 through June 2021.
Stevens allegedly told an auditor he didn’t file any federal income tax returns from 2017 to 2020.
Puyallup Truck & RV Sales’s dealership license was revoked in 2022 by the Department of Licensing following its own investigation. The inquiry reportedly found numerous instances of lack of compliance with regulations and other mandatory business practices. The dealership did business at 15317 Meridian E., Puyallup, and the results of the investigation caused it to shut down.
Investigators with the Attorney General’s Office carried out a search warrant at the business in 2022. They found financial documents for bank accounts that were not reported to DOR and hundreds of sales jackets recording vehicle sales, many of which were in a garbage bag found under several boxes.
The Attorney General’s Office charged Stevens with first-degree theft in January 2025. In a statement explaining why prosecutors moved to amend the charges, assistant attorney general Nick Kiewik wrote that the resolution followed substantial negotiation with defense counsel. Stanely was represented by an attorney from the Department of Assigned Counsel.
Kiewik said Stevens agreed to plead guilty to the reduced charge, which avoided a lengthy trial commitment, and that his guilty plea came with a restitution order directing him to repay the full amount of unremitted sales tax funds recorded in the probable cause document.
In other news out of Superior Court
Woman charged years after deadly Sumner hit-and-run sentenced to prison
A woman who was accused of fatally striking a pedestrian and fleeing on a two-lane road near Sumner nearly three years ago has been sentenced to two years, seven months in prison.
Erika Katherine Kindig, 42, pleaded guilty March 9 to failure to remain at an accident resulting in death. Pierce County Superior Court Judge Timothy Ashcraft sentenced Kindig the same day, giving her a punishment at the low end of the standard sentencing range of 31-41 months.
Investigators looking into the Sept. 30, 2022 hit-and-run that killed 32-year-old Logan Fithian were unable to solve the case for about two years, according to charging documents. Then a retired legal advisor to the Sheriff’s Office reached out to a deputy and said he’d been contacted by Kindig’s father.
The father reportedly said he believed Kindig had struck the pedestrian. According to the probable cause document, a deputy met with the father and was told Kindig left his home the night of the collision to drive home to Sumner, but she returned a few minutes later and said she’d hit a deer.
Kindig was driving a GMC Acadia when she hit Fithian, who was standing in the roadway, according to the probable cause document. Two security cameras captured the collision, and witnesses reported that the victim was seen walking on the side of the road shortly before he was struck.
Investigators found Kindig brought the Acadia to an auto shop for repair in December 2023, and she allegedly told the shop she’d driven off the road and into a ditch. She allegedly made the same claim to her insurance company. The vehicle was repaired and sold.
Kindig had no prior felony criminal convictions, according to court records.
