A Clinton, Massachusetts man has been handed down a sentence of five years on probation after pleading guilty to tax and mail fraud charges, among other offenses. Juliano Fernandes, 42, was sentenced in federal court in Worcester by U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman following a plea entered in July of last year. Fernandes admitted to a total of 11 counts of employment tax fraud, two counts of mail fraud, and two counts of making false statements to a United States agency, as detailed in an announcement by the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts.
The heart of the case revolved around Fernandes' role at Force Corporation and AB Construction, where he exercised financial control. Over a period spanning 2015 to 2017, he deliberately neglected to pay over employment taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service for these companies. Furthermore, from 2013 until 2017, Fernandes engaged in defrauding worker’s compensation insurance companies by misreporting the number of employees and their wages at said companies, a crime which he conceded to.
The matter also involved Anderson Dos Santos, a co-defendant associated with AB Construction, who had reportedly under-reported his income in individual tax returns for multiple tax years. Dos Santos, similar to Fernandes, pleaded guilty to his charges and received a sentence of three years on probation back in May 2024.
The consequences for Fernandes extended beyond employment tax fraud. In 2017, he issued materially false statements to the U.S. Department of Labor about the value of his property and his involvement with Force Corporation's payroll. These statements were tied to the Department of Labor's attempts to claim funds in relation to alleged civil wage violations. according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brendan D. O’Shea, Danial Bennett of the Worcester Branch Office, and John T. Mulcahy from the Public Corruption & Special Prosecutions Unit led the prosecution. The announcement stated that the case embodies a concerted effort by the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigations Boston Field Office, the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General Office of Investigations for Labor Racketeering and Fraud in the Northeast Region, as well as the Insurance Fraud Bureau of Massachusetts.
