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Bayonne Businessman Sentenced To Fed Pen In Tax, Bankruptcy Fraud

A Bayonne businessman man who used check-cashing businesses to hide hundreds of thousands in income he earned from his construction companies was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison on Wednesday.

Martin Luther King Jr. U.S. District Courthouse, Newark

Martin Luther King Jr. U.S. District Courthouse, Newark

Photo Credit: FILE

Patrick Franconeri, 57, must serve all of the plea-bargained sentence for tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud because there’s no parole in the federal prison system.

Franconeri failed to file a tax return or request an extension for 2014 after earning taxable income of $1,362,950, on which he owed the IRS $558,439 in payments, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.

He earned the money as the owner and operator of several construction businesses that did work for a major insurance company in New Jersey, Carpenito said.

Franconeri “took actions to conceal and attempt to conceal his income so that he would not have to pay taxes on it, including cashing checks at check-cashing facilities so that the money would not come to the attention of the IRS,” the U.S. attorney said.

He also filed lied on a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition he filed in U.S. District Court in Newark on in March 2010 when he “concealed and failed to disclose his ownership and operation of his construction companies, as well as $965,575 in income he had received in the prior two years as the owner and operator of his construction companies,” Carpenito said.

In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Brian R. Martinotti sentenced Franconeri to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $716,569 to the victims of his bankruptcy offense and $558,349 in restitution to the IRS.

Carpenito credited special agents of IRS – Criminal Investigation with the investigation leading to the guilty plea and sentence, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan W. Romankow of his Violent Crimes Unit in Newark.Bayo

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