Burlington, Vermont – The United States Attorney’s Office announced that Paul Hendler, 52, of Burlington, was sentenced today in United States District Court in Burlington to a total of 36 months of imprisonment following his guilty plea to a federal forgery charge. As part of these court proceedings, Hendler also admitted that he violated the terms of his supervised release on an earlier federal fraud conviction. Chief Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered that Hendler serve 26 months on the forgery case and a consecutive 10-month term for violating supervised release. This combined 36-month term represented an upward variance from the advisory Sentencing Guidelines. The court ordered that Hendler serve an additional three years of supervised release following completion of his prison term. It also ordered Hendler to pay restitution in the amount of $80,000. Hendler has been detained without bail since entering his guilty plea last summer.
In 2011, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont first charged Hendler in a wide-ranging fraud indictment that accused him of committing a variety of frauds against individuals and businesses. Hendler eventually pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering, and in 2015, was sent to prison. The court also ordered Hendler to pay restitution to multiple victims in a total amount of about $555,000. When Hendler was released from prison, he began a three-year term of supervised release. As a condition of supervised release, the court ordered Hendler to pay 10% of his gross monthly income toward his restitution obligation. Hendler’s release was supervised by the U.S. Probation Office in Vermont, and Hendler was required to submit monthly supervision reports to the Probation Office that included disclosures about monthly earnings and other cash inflows.
On January 27, 2022, a federal grand jury in Burlington returned a two-count indictment that charged Hendler with forgery and making false statements. According to the indictment, between 2019 and January 2021, Hendler performed some consulting and other work for a business that operated two restaurants in South Hero, Vermont. In 2020, Hendler took possession of the company’s checkbook. Between 2019 and January 2021, the indictment alleges, Hendler embezzled tens of thousands of dollars from the business by stealing cash receipts generated by the restaurants, forging the business owner’s signature on checks Hendler made out to himself, and by fraudulently inducing the owner to give him blank checks, signed by her, which Hendler then made payable to himself.
The second count of the indictment accused Hendler of making materially false statements to the U.S. Probation Office in his monthly supervision reports. According to the indictment, the reports Hendler filled out and gave to Probation significantly underreported the amount of money Hendler was receiving from the South Hero restaurant business.
Hendler pleaded guilty to the forgery charge in July 2023. At that time, he also admitted that he violated his supervised release by not paying restitution in a timely way to the victims of his first indictment.
This case was investigated by the Boston Office of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of the Inspector General for Tax Administration, and U.S. Attorney Nikolas Kerest commends the investigators for their excellent work.
Hendler is represented by Brooks McArthur, Esq. and Amanda Hemley, Esq.. The prosecutor is Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Waples.