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The two owners of a popular cheesesteak restaurant in Philadelphia were sentenced to 20 months in prison with three years of supervised release after committing tax fraud over a decade, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Nicholas Lucidonio, 57, and Anthony Lucidonio Sr., 84, both of New Jersey, failed to report more than $8 million in cash receipts while owning and operating Tony Luke’s in South Philadelphia from 2006 to 2016, according to a press release.
The DOJ said the owners would only deposit a portion of the cash they received at Tony Luke’s into their business bank account while also providing falsified information to their accountant. This led to “substantially underreported” tax filings for Tony Luke’s.
The Lucidonios also committed employment tax fraud throughout the 10 years, paying employees in cash while only reporting a portion of their wages to avoid detection, the press release said.
Then, in 2015, the Lucidonios got into a dispute over Tony Luke’s franchising rights, which prompted the duo to amend their business’ tax return from the previous year while continuing to hide their payroll tax fraud scheme, the DOJ said.
The Lucidonios defrauded the United States out of a total of $1,321,042, according to the release.
The IRS Criminal Investigation handled the case. Acting Section Chief John Kane of the Tax Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney and Criminal Division Chief Richard Barrett for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania are prosecuting the case.
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