BOSTON – The former owner of a beachfront restaurant and bar in Plymouth was sentenced today for concealing business income from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and paying restaurant employees under the table.
Rudolph Ferrucci, 66, of Plymouth, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley to two years’ probation, with the first six months to be served on home confinement, 400 hours of community service and a fine of $5,500. On Aug. 23, 2023, Ferrucci pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion and one count of failure to collect and pay over employee taxes.
Ferrucci owned and operated Sandy’s, a seasonal, cash-only restaurant and bar. From 2016 through 2020, Ferrucci diverted a portion of Sandy’s sales receipts for cash payments to suppliers and employees and to personal income for himself and his spouse. Ferrucci kept separate sets of financial records for Sandy’s, including one omitting diverted sales receipts, which Ferrucci’s tax return preparer used to report Sandy’s income to the IRS. As a result, Ferrucci underreported his and his spouse’s personal income tax obligations by $1.2 million over those four years, causing a loss to the IRS of over $250,000.
Additionally, Ferrucci paid Sandy’s employees more than $315,000 in cash wages, memorialized in a handwritten “second set of books” and not recorded in Sandy’s payroll records or tax returns. By not reporting these cash wages to the IRS, Ferrucci caused Sandy’s to fail to pay $75,000 in employment taxes owed to the IRS.
Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Harry Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation in Boston made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney David M. Holcomb of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit prosecuted the case.