Mass. Scrap Dealer Charged With Tax Conspiracy

A Chelsea, Massachusetts scrap metal dealer was indicted June 6 in federal court for conspiring to defraud the United States by impairing and impeding the Internal Revenue Service in connection with the administration of the tax laws.

United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Joseph A. Galasso, Special Agent In Charge of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, announced that Yale Strogoff was indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiring from at least the late 1980's until at least, December, 1998, to defraud the United States by impairing and impeding the IRS in connection with the administration of the income tax laws.

The indictment alleges that Strogoff, as president and owner of S. Strogoff & Co., Inc., a Chelsea, Mass., scrap metal dealer, conspired with a customer to impair and impede the IRS in connection with the administration of the tax laws by paying the customer with checks made out to fictitious payees for scrap metal sold to S. Strogoff & Co.

The indictment alleges that Strogoff also arranged with the bank on which the checks were drawn, for the bank to cash the checks made payable to the fictitious payees without requiring the person cashing the check to show any identification.

According to the indictment, the S. Strogoff & Co. customer was not declaring the money received from S. Strogoff & Co. on the books and records of the customer's corporation which sold the metal and was, instead, keeping the money and using it for personal purposes and not declaring the money on personal income tax returns.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter A. Mullin in Sullivan's Economic Crimes Unit.