Judge derides pizza shop boss’ Greek heritage defense in tax fraud sentence

The manager of a North Reading pizza restaurant who avoided paying corporate and personal taxes totalling over $387,000 will spend 21 months in prison, after a federal judge took issue with his defense that it was “simply his Greek” way of doing business.

“Is there a Greek family exception to income tax laws?” senior judge Douglas Woodlock rhetorically asked the attorney for Emanuel Panousos at his sentencing Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

Panousos, the manager of Mike’s Famous Roast Beef and Pizza, diverted cash receipts to himself and paid for his company’s supplies and portions of his employees’ wages with cash between 2013 and 2016, for an amount totalling approximately $1.9 million. He pleaded guilty in May to two false tax return charges for avoiding $387,180 in taxes.

Richard Chambers, Panousos’ lawyer, included in a sentencing memorandum asking for five years’ probation a letter from a psychologist, who attributed Panousos’ behavior to his parents and brother, who were sentenced to probation last year for their own tax evasion scheme at their Peabody pizza restaurant.

“Did (Emanuel) know he was cheating on his taxes? Without question,” Daniel Kriegman wrote. “But that was simply his Greek immigrant family’s way of doing business.”

Kriegman doubled down on the assertion and cited a news article, writing Panousos never questioned his family’s tendency to hide income, a behavior “probably brought overseas from Greece, ‘a country where everyone knows a thousand ways around the rules.'”

Woodlock said the letter’s inappropriate conclusions undermined the value of his letter, which also addressed Panousos’ drug use and mental health.

“I did not consider stereotypes of Greek families in fashioning [a] sentence,” he said.

Panosuos said all he knows in his life is working at his and his family’s restaurants, and asked Woodlock for leniency.

“I really need the court’s mercy today,” Panosuos said.

Woodlock issued the sentence at the low end of a prosecutor’s 21-27 month recommendation, and also ordered Panousos pay a $7,500 fine and restitution in the amount of owed taxes.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2WOvSKR