Ex-Beachwood Chiropractor Gets 5 Years For Tax Evasion

TRENTON, NJ – A former chiropractor from Beachwood whose office was in Lakewood has been sentenced to five years in prison for evading income taxes totaling more than half a million dollars from 2012 through 2015 and failing to report a Russian bank account, to which he wired more than $1.5 million, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced Tuesday.

Carlo Amato, 57, of Beachwood, had pleaded guilty in September 2018 before U.S. District Judge Michael A. Shipp to one count of tax evasion and one count of failure to file a report of foreign financial account while violating another law of the United States and as part of a pattern of illegal activity involving more than $100,000 in a 12-month period, Carpenito's office said.

From 2012 through 2015, Amato operated a chiropractic office in Lakewood through two entities: Chiropractic Care Consultants Inc. and Accident Recovery Physical Therapy.

He deposited, or caused to be deposited, checks for chiropractic services into accounts held in the names of his minor children. Amato knew the checks were taxable as income, but did not disclose the payments to his accountant, nor did he report them on his tax returns. Amato also failed to report as taxable income certain additional funds that were deposited into Chiropractic Care’s and Accident Recovery’s business bank accounts.

For example, Amato reported $0 in taxable income and $0 in tax due on his 2014 income tax return. His taxable income for 2014 was, in fact, $561,258, and Amato admitted that the tax due and owing to the IRS for 2014 was $197,036. Amato admitted that he also evaded more than $300,000 in taxes for the tax years 2012, 2013, and 2015.

Amato, a U.S. citizen, admitted that in 2014, he had an account at UniCredit Bank in Russia. He admitted that he wired more than $1.5 million to Russian bank accounts, including the UniCredit Bank account, and that he knew that he was obligated to report any foreign bank account with an aggregate value of more than $10,000. Amato admitted that he nonetheless failed to file a report of foreign account, commonly known as an FBAR, for the year 2014. Amato also admitted that the funds he failed to report were the product of a fraudulent scheme in which Amato overbilled at least six insurance companies by more than $1 million by billing for services that were never rendered.

Amato pleaded guilty in Ocean County Superior Court in April 2018 to first-degree financial facilitation of criminal activity for money laundering of funds from the overbilling scheme. It is not clear where Amato is currently; he was held in the Ocean County jail prior to his guilty plea after authorities found evidence he was planning to flee the country; but he was not listed in the inmate databases of either the state or county corrections websites. Read more: It's Back To Jail For Former Beachwood Chiropractor

Shipp, who imposed the federal jail sentence, also sentenced Amato to three years of supervised release.

Under the terms of his plea agreement, Amato will file amended tax returns and make full restitution for the years 2012 through 2015 and file accurate FBARs for the years 2012 through 2017.

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