A
federal grand jury sitting in the Eastern District of New York returned an
indictment yesterday, which was unsealed today, charging the owner of a
wholesale food distributor with obstructing the internal revenue laws, aiding
and assisting in the filing of false tax returns, and structuring currency
transactions, announced Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M.
Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.
According
to the indictment, Jose Cerritos resided in Brentwood, New York, and owned La
Centro American Corp. (La Centro), a wholesale food distributor in Bayshore
that sold to retail customers in the New York metropolitan area. The
indictment alleges that Cerritos caused the filing of false individual and
corporate income tax returns for 2011 and 2012 that did not report all of his
income or all of La Centro’s gross receipts. Cerritos allegedly did not
deposit all of La Centro’s receipts into its business bank accounts and did not
inform his tax return preparer of the cash receipts that were not deposited into
the business bank accounts. The indictment further alleges that Cerritos
attempted to structure La Centro’s cash receipts in amounts less than $10,000
on the same or consecutive days, to evade bank-reporting requirements, and that
he did so in a pattern of illegal activity involving more than $100,000 within
a 12-month period.
The
indictment also charges that in 2012 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) seized
funds from La Centro’s bank accounts due to the alleged structuring
activity. According to the indictment, the United States then filed a
civil action to forfeit the funds. Cerritos appeared as a claimant in the
lawsuit. During the discovery phase of the litigation, he and the other
claimants allegedly provided documents to the United States purporting to be
sales reports for La Centro for 2011 and 2012, but which allegedly omitted
millions of dollars of La Centro’s gross receipts.
An
indictment is not a finding of guilt. Individuals charged in indictments
are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
If
convicted, Cerritos faces a statutory maximum sentence of three years in prison
for each count of obstructing the internal revenue laws and aiding and
assisting in the filing of false tax returns and ten years in prison for
structuring. He also faces a period of supervised release, restitution
and monetary penalties.
Acting
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Goldberg thanked special agents of IRS
Criminal Investigation, who conducted the investigation, and Trial Attorneys
Sarah Ranney and Mark Kotila of the Tax Division, who are prosecuting the case.
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