Former Bay Area hospitality executive and auto shop owner, Geoffrey Palermo, has been sentenced to more than five years in prison after pleading guilty to a string of fraud charges, including wire fraud and failing to pay over a million dollars in payroll taxes. First Assistant United States Attorney Patrick Robbins, FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp, and IRS Criminal Investigation Acting Special Agent in Charge Michael Mosley announced the decision, following Palermo's conviction.
According to the Department of Justice, Palermo defrauded owners of a San Francisco Hilton hotel out of more than $1.5 million in a kickback scheme, and knowingly engaged to fraudulently acquire SBA and PPP loans for his car repair company. In his role at the Hilton hotel, Palermo had exploited his position to approve inflated invoices which led to illegitimate kickbacks, ultimately siphoning funds for personal gain.
In his guilty plea, Palermo admitted to entering into a fraudulent arrangement with contractor Adan Roldan, resulting in more than $1.6 million in kickbacks. The collusion involved submitting and approving overcharged invoices for renovation work, extracting illicit gains from the hotel's finances from 2013 to 2016. Post his hospitality career, Palermo's misdeeds continued at his auto repair shops, where he secured approximately $5 million in loans from the Small Business Administration under false pretenses and failed to pay over $1 million in federal taxes withheld from his employees' paychecks in 2018.
The 65-month sentence was handed down by Judge James Donato, who ordered Palermo to also serve three years of supervised release following his prison term. A restitution and forfeiture hearing has been scheduled for August 19, 2024. Palermo has been in custody since June 2023, and his associate, Roldan, who also pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy, awaits his sentencing on August 12, 2024. The prosecution of these cases was managed by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christiaan Highsmitt and Noah Stern, with Aarian Beti assisting, and stemmed from an in-depth investigation by the FBI and IRS-CI.
