Date: December 13, 2023 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Pittsburgh, PA — A resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on charges that he defrauded customers of his snow and ice removal business, United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan announced today. The nine-count Indictment named Charles W. Lantzman of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as the sole defendant. According to the Indictment presented to the court, from December 2018 through March 2019, Lantzman engaged in a scheme to defraud customers by padding the bills of customers with charges for services that were not performed. The Indictment specifically charges six counts of wire fraud. Lantzman is also charged with three counts of money laundering, occurring between December 2018 and March 2019. For each of the wire fraud counts, the law provides for a maximum total sentence of not more than 20 years in prison, a fine of not more than $250,000.00 or twice the gross gain to any person or loss to any person other than the defendant, or both. The law also provides for a maximum term of imprisonment of not more than 10 years, as well as a potential fine, on each of the money laundering counts. Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the actual sentence imposed would be based upon the seriousness of the offenses and the prior criminal history, if any, of the defendant. The Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (CI), Federal Bureau of Investigation, and United States Postal Inspection Service conducted the investigation leading to the Indictment in this case. An indictment is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
