TRENTON – A former Lakewood chiropractor was sentenced to five years in prison for tax evasion totaling over half a million, announced US Attorney Craig Carpenito.
Carlo Amato, 57, of Beachwood was sentenced on May 7 in federal court for evading income taxes between 2012 and 2015 and failing to report a Russian bank account where he wired over $1.5 million.
Amato previously pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion and one count of failure to file a report of foreign financial account (FBAR) while violating another law of the United States and as part of a pattern of illegal activity involving more than $100,000 in a 12-month period.
According to evidence and statements made in court, Amato operated chiropractic offices in Lakewood – Chiropractic Care Consultants Inc. and Accident Recovery Physical Therapy – from 2012 to 2015.
Amato allegedly deposited checks for chiropractic services into personal accounts named for his minor children. Although the checks were taxable income, Amato failed to report these funds to his accountant or represent them on his tax returns.
Amato also failed to report as taxable income certain additional funds that were deposited into Chiropractic Care’s and Accident Recovery’s business bank accounts. He reported $0 in taxable income and tax due on his 2014 return when he actually earned $561,258 in taxable income in 2014 and owed the IRS $197,036.
Amato admitted that he also evaded more than $300,000 in taxes for the tax years 2012, 2013, and 2015.
Amato also had a foreign bank account at UniCredit Bank in Russia. In 2014, he admitted to wiring more than $1.5 million to Russian bank accounts, including the UniCredit Bank account. Amato failed to report this foreign account knowingly. The funds wired to the foreign accounts were also the product of a fraudulent scheme in which Amato overbilled at least six insurance companies by more than $1 million by billing for services that were never rendered.
Previously, he pleaded guilty in Ocean County Superior Court to first degree financial facilitation of criminal activity for money laundering of funds from the overbilling scheme.
Amato has been sentenced to 60 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
Under the terms of his plea agreement, Amato will file amended tax returns and make full restitution for the years 2012 through 2015 and file accurate FBARs for the years 2012 through 2017.
