Date: June 7, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Albany, NY — Bruce Bochette of Charlton, New York, pled guilty today to evading taxes on about $825,000 in business income. United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman and Thomas Fattorusso, Executive Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS CI), New York Field Division, made the announcement. Bochette operates a commercial painting business. In pleading guilty, he admitted that for tax years 2017 through 2021, he evaded income taxes by depositing checks, and portions of checks, into his personal account that were payments from his company’s commercial painting clients. Bochette did not report this income to the IRS, on either his company’s tax returns or his personal tax returns, and did not pay taxes on this income. Bochette admitted to not reporting $825,719.56 in business income, and to evading the assessment and payment of $219,706 in taxes. Sentencing is scheduled for October 4, 2024, before United States District Judge Anne M. Nardacci. Bochette faces up to 5 years in prison, up to 3 years of supervised release, and a maximum $100,000 fine. A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statute the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors. IRS CI investigated this case and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Barnett is prosecuting this case. 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.
