Former Las Vegas Casino Company Employee Sentenced to Prison

A former employee of a Las Vegas casino company was sentenced yesterday to serve 12 months and one day in federal prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $351,039 in restitution to the United States for tax evasion, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Daniel G. Bogden of the District of Nevada.  

According to the plea agreement and other court documents, from about 2005 to 2008, Anthony M. Cirulli was employed as a production manager in the corporate advertising department of Station Casinos, a company that owns several casinos in the Las Vegas area.  Part of his job involved reviewing bids for printing contracts and determining which printing companies would be awarded the contracts.  During the course of his job, Cirulli began soliciting side payments from printing companies.  He instructed the companies to pay him a percentage of the printing contract to guarantee that the companies would continue to be awarded work.  Over the course of four years, Cirulli received side payments of more than $2.1 million from these arrangements.  He concealed the payments in two different nominee bank accounts in the names of sham business entities.

“The Tax Division is committed to holding individuals accountable for their criminal conduct,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Ciraolo.  “This prosecution and the sentence imposed on Mr. Cirulli sends a clear message that those individuals evading their federal tax obligations do so at their own peril.”

On Sept. 9, 2014, Cirulli pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion for concealing the payments that he received from printing companies and willfully filing a false federal income tax return for 2007 that omitted the funds.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Ciraolo and U.S. Attorney Bogden commended the special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, who investigated the case, and Trial Attorney Christopher Maietta of the Tax Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Dickinson of the District of Nevada, who prosecuted the case.

Additional information about the Tax Division and its enforcement efforts may be found on the division’s website.  Additional information about tax fraud schemes to watch out for may be found on the IRS-Criminal Investigation website.