Lakewood chiropractor gets 60-months for evading income taxes

A former chiropractor in Lakewood is sentenced to 60-months in prison for evading income taxes totaling more than half a million dollars between 2012 and 2015 as well as failing to report a Russian bank account which he wired more than $1.5-million into, announced U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito.

Carlo Amato, 57, of Beachwood previously pleaded guilty 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 (FBAR) 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.

Judge Shipp imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court.

From 2012 through 2015, Amato operated a chiropractic office in Lakewood through 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.

Carpenito said that Amato knew that these checks were taxable as income, but he 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, $561,258.00 and Amato admitted that the tax due and owing to the IRS for 2014 was $197,036.00.

Amato admitted that he also evaded more than $300,000.00 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 $10,000.00.

Amato admitted that he failed to file a report of foreign account, commonly known as an FBAR, for the year 2014 and admitted that the funds he failed to report were the product of a fraudulent scheme in which he overbilled at least six insurance companies by more than $1 million by billing for services that were never rendered.

Amato previously pleaded guilty in Ocean County Superior Court to first degree financial facilitation of criminal activity for money laundering of funds from the overbilling scheme.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Shipp 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.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elisa T. Wiygul of the Criminal Division in Trenton.

Defense counsel: Thomas R. Ashley Esq., Newark.

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