Silent Farm owners face new tax fraud charges

BY ERIKA NORTON
GOSHEN - The Goshen couple charged with stealing money from and endangering a disabled man who lived and worked on their farm is now facing new tax-fraud charges.
John Quick, 66, and Mary Quick, 61, appeared in Orange County Court on Wednesday, January 24, entering not-guilty pleas to an indictment charging each of them with four felony counts of third-degree criminal tax fraud.
According to the indictment, in 2012 and 2014, both John and Mary Quick allegedly failed to file their tax returns in a timely fashion and failed to pay the taxes due in each of those two years.
The Quicks were released on their own recognizance. Their lawyers, John Ingrassia and Marcello Cirigliano, agreed to a prosecution request to consolidate the new indictment with the 2017 indictment.
2017 chargesIn 2017, the Quicks, who own Silent Farm in Goshen, were both charged with one count of grand larceny in the third degree and one count of endangering the welfare of a physically disabled person in the first degree, both felonies. They were also charged with one count of petty larceny, a misdemeanor.
According to the 2017 indictment, both John and Mary Quick allegedly stole more than $3,000 from a mentally disabled man between Feb. 14, 2012, and Dec. 8, 2016. During that same time, the Quick couple is alleged to have acted in “a manner likely to be injurious to the physical, mental or moral welfare of a person” unable to care for himself because of a mental disability.
At the time of the arrest, State Trooper Steven Nevel said police received a report on Dec. 12, 2016, that a vulnerable adult was living in deplorable conditions at Silent Farm, a commercial horse ranch and bed and breakfast. Members of the Office of Human Services of Orange County Social Services and the Office of Adult Services of Orange County Social Services removed a 59-year-old mentally disabled man from the stable-hand quarters of a barn, where they say he had been living for the past several years.
Police said that, after further investigation, the couple was found to have had assumed control of the man’s bank account and removed funds without authorization.
The 85-acre Silent Farm property, located at 35 Axworthy Lane, is not only operated as a bed-and-breakfast and horse farm, but as a venue for weddings, children’s birthday parties, and other events.
The Quicks remain free without bail and are due back in court on Feb. 22.