For more than eight years, Anthony Guzzone, former director of Global Construction at Bloomberg LP in New York, failed to report the million-dollar sum to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Justice Department’s Tax Division said in a statement.
The proceeds came from the bribes Guzzone received from building subcontractors who, in exchange, were awarded various construction contracts and sub-contracts performed for Bloomberg as part of a kickback scheme.
Along with other Bloomberg managers and officials at Turner Construction, a building contractor that performed projects for the U.S. company, Guzzone asked for a total of more than $6 million in bribes.
The executives also received expensive Super Bowl tickets, wedding catering services, flight tickets and free construction work on their homes as alternative forms of payment.
The U.S. Department of Justice stated that Guzzone’s failure to report the illicit income during the period of 2010-2017 represented a tax loss of $450,000.
Apart from his Prison term, Guzzone will undergo three years of supervised release and will pay nearly $600,000 in restitution to the IRS.
In related proceedings, Michael Campana, a subordinate construction manager at Bloomberg and Guzzone’s co-conspirator, was sentenced to two years in prison in July 2020 for evading taxes on more than $420,000 in the same scheme.
Additionally, two other Turner Construction officials are awaiting sentencing for their part in the conspiracy.
Ronald Olson and Vito Nigro, two managers at a contracting company which worked with Bloomberg, were separately charged in July 2020 for evading taxes on more than $1.4 million and $1.8 million, respectively.
In all, the defendants are charged with failing to pay taxes on bribes exceeding $5.1 million, according to the DOJ.
