Former owner of Massachusetts restaurant admits to underreporting income by $1.2 mil, paying employees under the table

BOSTON – The former owner of a beachfront restaurant and bar has been charged and has agreed to plead guilty to concealing business income from the Internal Revenue Service and paying restaurant employees under the table.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Justice, 65-year-old Rudolph Ferrucci of Plymouth, has agreed to plead guilty to one count of tax evasion and one count of failure to collect and pay over employee taxes. A plea hearing has not yet been scheduled by the Court.

According to the charging documents, Ferrucci owned and operated Sandy’s, a seasonal, cash-only restaurant and bar. It is alleged that, from 2016 through 2020, Ferrucci diverted a portion of Sandy’s sales receipts for cash payments to suppliers and employees and to personal income for himself and his spouse. Ferrucci allegedly kept two sets of financial records for Sandy’s, including one omitting diverted sales receipts, which Ferrucci’s tax return preparer used to report Sandy’s income to the IRS. As a result of this alleged conduct, Ferrucci underreported his and his spouse’s personal income tax obligations by $1.2 million over those four years, causing a loss to the IRS of over $250,000.

It is also alleged that Ferrucci paid Sandy’s employees more than $315,000 in cash wages, memorialized in a handwritten “second set of books” and not recorded in Sandy’s payroll records or tax returns. By not reporting these cash wages to the IRS, Ferrucci allegedly caused Sandy’s to fail to pay over $75,000 in employment taxes owed to the IRS.

The charge of tax evasion provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater. The charge of failure to collect and pay over employee taxes provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of up to $250,000 and restitution to the IRS. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Joleen D. Simpson, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation in Boston, made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney David M. Holcomb of Levy’s Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case.