Hoboken-Based Accountant Sentenced To 12 Months For Tax Evasion

NEWARK, N.J. – A Hoboken-based accountant was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for evading more than $914,000 in taxes on income he earned from his accounting practice and various rental properties he owned, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced today.

Louis Picardo, 64, of Hoboken, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty to an information charging him with four counts of income tax evasion. U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler imposed the sentence on Feb. 4, 2020 in Newark federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

Picardo served as the Tax Collector in Hoboken between 1973 and 2008 and was a partner in Cannarozzi & Picardo LLC, a Hoboken-based accounting firm. Picardo also was a member of multiple entities (the “Picardo Entities”) that managed both commercial and residential properties in Hudson County. Picardo failed to report approximately $3,725,853 in taxable income that he collected from Cannarozzi & Picardo and the Picardo Entities on federal income tax returns he filed with the IRS for the tax years 2012 to 2015, resulting in a tax loss to the United States of approximately $914,908.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Chesler sentenced Picardo to two years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of $914,908.

U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito credited special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge John R. Tafur, with the investigation leading to the sentence.

The government is represented by Assistant United States Attorney Sean Farrell of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Special Prosecutions Division and Rahul Agarwal, Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division.

Defense counsel: Peter Willis, Esq., Jersey City