Former owner of Nona’s Kitchen in Waynesville indicted for failing to pay taxes

Julie Marlea Harmon, the former owner of the once-popular but now-closed Nona’s Kitchen in downtown Waynesville, Missouri, was indicted on felony counts of failing to pay her taxes.

Darrell Todd Marina of the Pulaski County Daily News landed the scoop and posted it Friday on Facebook. More details:

According to court documents filed Tuesday by Pulaski County Prosecutor Kevin Hillman, Harmon, who is also known as Julie Bray, didn’t file sales tax returns for the periods of October 2017 to September of this year and of November 2016 to September of this year, and didn’t file income tax returns from January 2017 to September of this year.
The charges filed by Hillman are based on a report by a Missouri Department of Revenue Criminal Tax Investigation Bureau agent claiming that Harmon failed to file “Missouri sales taxes due for Nona’s Kitchen.” The DOR agent filed his report on June 6 and Hillman filed charges three months later. […]
Instead of paying taxes due on sales from Nona’s Kitchen, Harmon “spent that income on personal expenses, hotels and shopping,” according to the DOR investigator’s report. 

Maurina reported Harmon owes the state $64,855.36 in back taxes. She faces two to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. A court date was set for Oct. 18.

Maurina also found Harmon, aka Julie Garcia, had at least four tax liens filed against her for nonpayment since 2010 and two claims against her by a local real estate firm and a bank. A home she owned with her former husband also was foreclosed.

In comment threads, a number of people objected to Maurina’s reporting about Harmon’s indictment, citing the charity work she did through Nona’s Kitchen. Others objected to Maurina’s reporting on her two divorces, though they are inextricably linked to other cases of her not paying her bills and thus show a pattern of that.

I long have observed Maurina as a diligent reporter, and everything in Pulaski County Daily News in the case seems to check out through Missouri’s online courts website.

According to a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page, Nona’s Kitchen closed in late December 2018 after four years.

Nona’s Kitchen at 103 N. Benton St. in Waynesville sat in an old house less than a half-block north of Route 66 in downtown.

(Image of Nona’s Kitchen in Waynesville, Missouri, via Facebook)