Local Man Sentenced to 18 Months for $700K Tax Fraud

[Story originally posted at 5:46 a.m.]

A Hampton Falls man was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to 18 months in prison for "significantly understating his income" to avoid paying more than $200,000 in taxes, according to a U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman.

Joseph Minai, 43, was sentenced in Boston, Mass., by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf to 18 months in prison and 12 months supervised release for four counts of filing a false tax return — felonies which U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said occurred between 2003 and 2006.

The Hampton Falls man was also ordered in court to recompense the withheld $206,022 in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, as well as pay a $10,000 fine, according to Ortiz.

Ortiz said Minai, who pleaded guilty to the fraud indictment in November 2010 to avoid a trial, worked for a national information technology contractor between 2003 and 2006 and reported a total of $601,301 in income from the job on his tax returns over that four-year period.

She said Minai "failed," though, to report and pay taxes on "significant additional income" — roughly $700,000 — from his side job, which consisted of consultation work and selling used computer hardware to "several local companies."

Court paperwork states that Minai's federal income tax returns were prepared by a "professional tax preparer" and that Minai "did not tell the tax preparer about the additional income he received from his side business."

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Bookbinder in Ortiz’s
Computer Crimes Unit, and information was released in connection with the Internal Revenue Service.