Feds Charge Former Local Party Committee Chairman With Lying On Tax Returns, Student Aid Apps

The IRS originally charged Anthony Salters, 58, of Hillside earlier this year with filing a false federal income tax return in 2013 by stating that his business, Media Allies LLC, had no income.

In fact, the IRS said, Salters and Media Allies had “substantial gross receipts” in 2013, including $104,411 worth of checks from, among others, the City of Orange the Paterson Municipal Utilities Authority and the Newark Housing Authority.

The indictment returned Tuesday by a grand jury in Newark charges Salters with:

• subscribing to a false tax return for tax year 2013:
• two counts of subscribing to false tax returns, statements, and other documents for tax years 2014 and 2015:
• failing to file a tax return for tax year 2016:
• four counts of wire fraud;
• three counts of student aid fraud.

According to the indictment, Salters claimed no income three years in a row, beginning in 2013, when he, in fact, had "substantial gross receipts in tax years 2013 to 2015, as well as tens of thousands of dollars in gross income in 2016," when he didn't file a tax return at all.

Salters, a former Hillside Democratic Committee chairman, "reported false information about his income in connection with his dependent child’s application for student financial aid," U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.

"From January 2014 to May 2017, Salters engaged in a scheme to defraud the United States Department of Education, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and a university in New Jersey where Salters’ dependent child was an undergraduate," Carpenito said.

Salters submitted "materially false information underreporting [his] income, including the information provided in his dependent child’s Free Applications for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSAs, the U.S. attorney said.

Carpenito credited special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, special agents of the FBI, special agents of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector Generaland special agents of the U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General with the investigation leading to the indictment, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorneys J Fortier Imbert and Cari Fais of his Special Prosecutions Division.

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