April 3, 09

NEWS / Connecticut Resident Pleads Guilty to Multi-Million Dollar Tax Fraud Conspiracy Involving New York C

WASHINGTON — A Trumbull, Conn., resident who was involved in operating three businesses in Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Department of Justice announced today.

Krzysztof Koczon pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to conspiracy to aid another in filing false tax returns. Between approximately 2000 and February 2005, Koczon conspired with others to falsify income tax returns through a fraudulent check cashing scheme for the owner of a corporation that was engaged in the business of providing maintenance and insulation services to New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH). According to the charge, Koczon provided false documentation to co-conspirators indicating that he had performed construction services and received more than $2.3 million in checks from the co-conspirators as payment for the construction services. Koczon cashed the checks but returned the bulk of the money to the co-conspirators in exchange for a fee. The co-conspirators then took false deductions for those payments made to Koczon’s businesses.

"Those who illegally profit from their participation in fraudulent schemes will be vigorously prosecuted," said Scott D. Hammond, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department’s Antitrust Division.

The tax fraud conspiracy that Koczon is charged with carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime, if either of those amounts is greater than the statutory maximum fine.

In April 2007, as part of the same investigation, Michael Theodorobeakos and two maintenance and insulation companies he co-owned —Monosis Inc. and STU Associates Inc. — pleaded guilty to conspiring to rig bids on the supply of maintenance and insulation services to NYPH and Mount Sinai Medical Center (Mount Sinai). In addition, Michael Vignola and Mister AC Ltd. pleaded guilty in November 2007 to conspiring to rig bids on heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) services provided to NYPH and paying kickbacks to former NYPH purchasing officials. In April 2008, Aaron S. Weiner pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy wherein Weiner acted as a conduit in another million-dollar kickback scheme also involving one of the same former NYPH purchasing officials involved with the Vignola kickback schemes. On March 25, 2009, Mariusz Debowski pleaded guilty to participating in the same tax fraud conspiracy at NYPH.

These charges arose from an ongoing federal antitrust investigation of fraud, bribery, tax-related offenses and bidding irregularities relating to contracts administered by the Facilities Operations Department and the Engineering Department at NYPH and the Engineering Department at Mount Sinai. The investigation is being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s New York Field Office, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation’s New York Field Office.

Anyone with information concerning bid rigging, bribery, tax offenses or fraud related to contracts administered by the Facilities Operations Department at NYPH or the Engineering Departments at Mount Sinai or NYPH should contact the New York Field Office of the Antitrust Division at 212-264-9308 or the New York Office of the FBI at 212-384-4467.

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