United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy | U.S. Department of Justice
A Massachusetts businessman has been sentenced for his involvement in a payroll tax fraud scheme. Det Tran, aged 62 from Dorchester, received a sentence of one year and a day in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay over $2.5 million in restitution. This decision was handed down by U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin in Boston.
Tran pleaded guilty in September 2024 to two counts of failure to collect and pay employment taxes. From at least 2018 through 2021, Tran owned HTP Temp. Inc., a temporary employment agency providing workers for various businesses. During this period, he paid $8 million in cash wages "off the books" to his employees. This led to false quarterly filings being prepared by his accountant for the IRS regarding employee wages and tax withholdings, resulting in an evasion of more than $2.1 million in taxes owed.
The announcement was made by United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Jonathan Wlodyka, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the IRS's Criminal Investigations in Boston. The U.S. Attorney’s Office acknowledged the assistance provided by the Insurance Fraud Bureau of Massachusetts in this case, which was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin A. Saltzman from the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit.
