Gloucester Seafood Executive Pleads Guilty to Tax Charge

BOSTON – A senior sales executive at a seafood processing company in Gloucester pleaded guilty today in federal court in Boston to tax fraud.

Richard J. Pandolfo, 71, of North Andover, pleaded guilty to one count of making and subscribing a false tax return. U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns scheduled sentencing for July 13, 2017. Pandolfo was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2016.

From 2008 to 2012, Pandolfo received substantial supplemental income for his work at a seafood processing company in Gloucester from the company’s president. Some of those payments were made directly to Pandolfo or to his spouse, but Pandolfo did not report or pay taxes on any of those payments. Other payments were made by a corporate entity controlled by the seafood processor’s president to a purported interior design company set up in the name of Pandolfo’s spouse. Pandolfo did report that income, but improperly deducted personal expenses from that income as business expenses, thereby improperly reducing the taxes he owed. In total, Pandolfo failed to pay $25,879 in taxes, which, as part of the plea, he agreed to pay in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

The charging statute provides a sentence of no greater than three years in prison, one year of supervised release and a fine of $100,000. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than maximum penalties. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Acting United States Attorney William D. Weinreb and Joel P. Garland, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation in Boston, made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stephen E. Frank and Brian A. Pérez-Daple of Weinreb’s Economic Crimes Unit are prosecuting the case.