Skip to main content
Press Release

Owner of Local Roofing Company Pleads Guilty to Concealing Money from IRS

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts

BOSTON – The owner of a Norwood roofing company pleaded guilty today to hiding thousands of dollars of his business income by intentionally filing false tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service.

Michael Olen, 60, pleaded guilty to making and subscribing a materially false tax return after being charged via an Information in January 2015.  U.S. District Court Senior Judge Rya W. Zobel scheduled sentencing for May 27, 2015.

Olen owned and operated O’Lyn Contractors, Inc., a roofing service based in Norwood, Mass.  O’Lyn’s customers generally paid for roofing services by check, and Olen used a local tax preparer to draft his business and personal tax returns based on business revenue for the year.  But in tax year 2008, Olen hid a substantial amount of his business income from his tax preparer by diverting customer payments to his personal accounts.  Consequently, the tax preparer unwittingly entered false figures for O’Lyn’s business income, and Olen’s personal income, on the relevant tax returns.  In 2008, Olen hid 97 payments in this manner, diverting 78 of them to his personal bank accounts and cashing 19 of them at a local check cashing service.  In total, Olen underreperted his 2008 income from O’Lyn by $207,567.  Moreover, Olen used the same method to hide income during tax years 2004 – 2007.  Over five years, Olen hid in total $1,184,927 from the Internal Revenue Service.

The charging statute provides a sentence of no greater than three years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of $100,000, paying for the cost of his prosecution, and paying restitution to the Internal Revenue Service for the cumulative tax losses.  Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties.  Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and William P. Offord, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation in Boston, made the announcement today.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling of Ortiz’s Economic Crimes Unit.

Updated February 18, 2015