Former Secretary of Transportation James Kerasiotes Sentenced to Six Months in Jail for Tax Evasion

BOSTON – James Kerasiotes, 61, former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation, was sentenced today to six months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young for filing false tax returns.  Judge Young also ordered Kerasiotes to serve one year of supervised release, four months of which must be served in home confinement, $31,448 in restitution to the IRS and a $5,000 fine.  Kerasiotes was ordered to report to the U.S. Marshals on March 20, 2015.

“As a former cabinet-level official in state government whose salary was paid with tax dollars, James Kerasiotes was well versed in the fundamental obligation to honestly report his income,” said U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz.  “Instead he did just the opposite – seeking to cheat the system and undermine the work of good government.”

Kerasiotes pleaded guilty in September 2014.  In January 2015, after a four-day evidentiary hearing, the Court held that the government had proven that the tax loss attributable to Kerasiotes’s crimes was more than $30,000.

Kerasiotes admitted that he was a self-employed consultant providing strategy and business origination services to clients in the transportation and construction industries.  For the calendar years 2010 and 2011, Kerasiotes filed Forms 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Returns, knowing that those forms reflected only a portion of the income Kerasiotes earned from his consulting business during those years.  By underreporting his total business income for 2010 and 2011, Kerasiotes evaded the payment of income taxes to the IRS.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, William P. Offord, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation in Boston and Cheryl Garcia, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations, New York Regional Office, made the announcement today.  The case was prosecuted by Kristina E. Barclay of Ortiz’s Public Corruption Unit.