Scrap Dealer Sentenced for Tax Evasion

U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan and Joseph Galasso, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, announced that Yale Strogoff has been sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel to one year of probation, the first four months of which are to be served in home confinement with electronic monitoring. Zobel also ordered Strogoff to pay a $25,000 fine. 

On May 17, 2004, Strogoff pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States by impairing and impeding the IRS in connection with the administration of the income tax laws.

At the earlier plea hearing the prosecutor told the Court that, had the case proceeded to trial, the evidence would have proven that Strogoff, as president and owner of S. Strogoff & Co., Inc., a Chelsea, Mass., scrap metal dealer, conspired with certain customers from at least the late 1980's until December, 1998 to pay those customers with checks made payable to fictitious payees for scrap metal sold to S. Strogoff & Co. 

Additionally, Strogoff arranged with the bank on which the checks were drawn for the bank to cash the checks made payable to fictitious payees without requiring the customer to show any identification.