HOLYOKE BUSINESS OWNER PLEADS GUILTY TO EMBEZZLEMENT AND TAX FRAUD
BOSTON, Mass. - A Deerfield man owning a business in Holyoke was convicted yesterday in federal court of embezzling money from an employee benefit plan and filing false tax returns.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, Susan M. Dukes, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation - Boston Field Division, and Edward Maloney, Acting Regional Director of the Employee Benefits Security Administration in Boston, announced today that ANDREW ROSS SCOTT, 58, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor to embezzling money from an employee benefit plan and filing false tax returns.
At yesterday’s plea hearing, the prosecutor told the Court that had the case proceeded to trial the Government’s evidence would have proven that between April 15, 2004, and December 31, 2007, SCOTT embezzled $44,591 from an employee benefit plan at ARS Strategic Mail Services, a company that SCOTT owned in Holyoke. In addition, from 2003 to 2008, SCOTT filed tax returns falsely claiming that he had contributed $22,479 to a pension and profit sharing plan for ARS Strategic Mail Services employees.
Judge Ponsor scheduled sentencing for October 15, 2010. SCOTT faces up to eight years imprisonment to be followed by four years of supervised release, and a $500,000 fine.
The case was investigated by the United States Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, in Springfield, MA. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin O’Regan of Ortiz’s Springfield Office.
