A former Pittsfield, Mass., entrepreneur has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for his role in a series of frauds and attempts to avoid paying taxes.
Michael J. Armitage, 56, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor to 66 months in federal prison to be followed by five years of supervised release.
Armitage was ordered to forfeit $24,010 and pay restitution of $1.5 million to the IRS; $191,819 to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue; $4.2 million to the Federal Transit Administration; and $215,138 to the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority.
Armitage pleaded guilty in October 2010 to three counts of false statements to a federally insured financial institution, three counts of tax evasion, one count of false statements to a federal official, one count of conspiracy, one count of false claims, and one count of endeavoring to obstruct a federal audit.
According to court documents, Armitage did not file a single personal federal income tax return between 1993 and 2006 in spite of receiving millions of dollars in income from sources such as Power Development Co. LLC, an energy company that he founded and controlled.
Armitage was required to repay more than $1 million to PDC for money that he had misappropriated, including approximately $340,000 in checks that he had written to himself but fraudulently mislabeled in PDC’s check register as payable to others.
From February 2001 to April 24, 2006, Armitage executed a scheme to defraud United Bank, located in West Springfield, Mass., in connection with three separate loans. Armitage used or submitted various false or fraudulent documents to perpetrate these fraud schemes, including a 2001 personal financial statement that omitted any debts owed to the IRS or to PDC and on which he claimed that his taxes were settled through 1999.
Related Federal Cases
- Michael Galatis, Health Care Fraud, Massachusetts 2014 · Massachusetts
- Michael J. Cuomo, Retirement Fund Scam, Massachusetts 2024 · Massachusetts
- Michael Center, Conspiracy to Commit Mail Fraud, Massachusetts 2019 · Washington
- Cedric Cromwell, Financial Impropriety, Massachusetts 2020 · Rhode Island
- Paul R. McGonigle, Investment Adviser Fraud and Money Laundering, Massachusetts 2023 · Rhode Island
Key Facts
- State: Massachusetts
- Category: White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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