Logiudice Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison for Tax Evasion, Making False Statements

Eric Logiudice, a resident of , has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for evading his personal taxes and sending false documents to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in an attempt to receive community redevelopment funding he was not entitled to, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced today.

Logiudice, 42, plead guilty to tax evasion and making false statements in front of U.S. District Judge Joel A. Pisano in Trenton Federal Court on July 14, 2011 where he was charged on two counts: one count of tax evasion in 2006 and one count of making false statements. Logiudice sat in front of Pisano today again in Trenton Federal Court where he imposed his sentence upon Logiudice.

According to statements made in court and documents filed for this case, Logiudice admitted to evading personal taxes in 2006 in an amount of $115,711. Between 2005 and 2008, Logiudice evaded $199,847 in personal income taxes by submitting fraudulent tax returns which failed to disclose $607,161 in income, which included at least $150,000 which Logiudice had embezzled from his former employer, NJS Metropolitan Architectural Woodworking Inc. of Union, NJ.

When Logiudice worked at NJS he reportedly discovered that an individual was in the process of sending in an application to the City of Orange Township Department of Planning and Development in order to gain money for a renovation project on Lincoln Avenue from Essex County HUD’s Community Economic Revitalization Program.

Logiudice became the general contractor on this project and caused another employee to submit fraudulent, certified weekly payroll reports for five employees of NJS who never worked on the project. These falsified reports were submitted to the City of Orange officials and subsequently $52,872.50 in community redevelopment funds were supplied by HUD.

Besides serving 18 months in prison, Pisano additionally sentenced Logiudice to three years of supervised release. Also, as part of Logiudice's guilty plea, he will pay restitution in the amount of $199,847 to the IRS for the losses associated with his fraudulent tax returns between 2005 and 2008, $52,872.50 to HUD for his submission of fraudulent payroll records, and at least $150,000 to NJS Metropolitan Architectural Woodworking Inc.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney David E. Malagold, the Chief of the Organized Crime/Gangs Unit in Newark.

Special agents of the FBI which U.S. Attorney Fishman credited were under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward; IRS – Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge JoAnn Zuniga; the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering & Fraud Investigations, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Robert L. Panella; and the HUD Office of Inspector General, Mid-Atlantic Region, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Joseph W. Clarke, with the investigation leading to today’s sentence.