Rochester, N.Y.-- U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Richard Williams, of Canandaigua, N.Y., who was convicted of attempting to evade income tax for the year 2010, was sentenced to three years probation and ordered to pay $123,638 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service by U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley E. Tyler, who handled the case, stated that the defendant was the owner and sole proprietor of Richard’s Paving. For the year 2010, Williams failed to report employee wages to the IRS by providing false Social Security Numbers (SSN’s) to various customers and by directing all of his customers to write checks to him personally. The defendant then cashed the checks at the customer’s bank instead of depositing the checks into a business bank account and provided false SSN’s to the banks.
This law enforcement action is part of President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. President Obama established the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.
The sentencing is the culmination of an investigation on the part of Special Agents of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, under the direction of under the direction of Toni M. Weirauch, Special Agent in Charge.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
