'Yoga To The People' Leaders Accused Of $20M Tax Dodge Flex: Feds

NEW YORK CITY — The leaders of Yoga To The People — a popular, now-defunct New York City-based chain accused of being "cultlike" — reaped $20 million in profits but failed to paid taxes, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Gregory Gumucio, 61, Michael Anderson, 51, and Haven Soliman, 33, were arrested Wednesday in Washington state on tax fraud charges filed in a Brooklyn federal court, authorities said.

A 25-page complaint lays out a years-long scheme by the trio to keep the chain's profits, often in cash that they consolidated in "stacking parties" at the founder's Lower East Side apartment, effectively off the books.

Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the yoga threesome paid employees in cash, didn't maintain financial records and other methods to conceal their wealth.

“As alleged, the defendants operated a lucrative nationwide yoga business, which brought in over $20 million and netted them each substantial sums, permitting them to live lavish lifestyles," Williams said in a statement. "Yet the defendants chose not to file tax returns, or pay income taxes, for at least seven consecutive years."

Yoga To The People started in 2006 on the Lower East Side as a donation-based yoga studio, according to the complaint.

The studio became popular and spread first across New York City, and then over the nation, with at least 20 outposts from California to Colorado to Washington, court documents state.

Their credos, outlined on their website, of "No glorified teachers" and "This yoga is for everyone," helped draw in a devoted base of students and teachers, the complaint states. But it also belied a darker side, one that an exposé in The Cut described as "cultlike" wider organization with torturous training sessions, pressure to adopt a strict vegan diet, low pay and a founder who engaged in harassment and abuse.

Yoga To The People shuttered in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic and growing accusations of a toxic culture, but federal authorities apparently weren't through with the chain.

The complaint states the multi-million dollar business didn't have a formal corporate office, only Gumucio's apartment on St. Marks Place, from which his texts and emails largely functioned as a de facto financial ledger.

From 2010 to 2020, the company reaped $20 million in profits but never filed a corporate tax return, prosecutors said.

Gumucio, along with his lieuteants, Anderson and Soliman, all received massive income from the business, but never filed personal tax returns from 2013 to 2020, authorities said.

But they all maintained lavish livestyles — the complaint details trips to Arurba, Bolivia, France, Thailand, Turks and Caicos, among other places.

Gumucio held Denver Broncos season tickets worth about $41,000, the complaint states.

Prosecutors accused the trio of evading taxes by several methods: accepting payments in cash, paying teachers "off the books," grooming young woman to become "owners" of studios, stacking piles of money that they forbid employees from counting, using business accounts to pay personal expenses and manipulating employees into free labor.

All the tax fraud charges that the trio faces carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Read the full complaint here.