Chaim Deutsch sentenced to 3 months in prison
Former City Councilman Chaim Deutsch was sentenced to three months in prison Thursday for cheating the government out of more than $82,000 in taxes over the course of several years.
The disgraced Brooklyn Democrat, who pleaded guilty to a tax
evasion charge in April, will also have to pay a $5,500 fine and restitution in
the full amount of taxes he dodged, plus interest.
Manhattan federal Judge James Cott handed down the sentence
at a lengthy hearing Thursday morning, saying a term of imprisonment was
necessary to deter others from cheating on their taxes.
“A public official who filed false tax returns for three
years must go to jail,” Cott said from the Lower Manhattan courthouse.
In prepared remarks, the former pol told the judge his
arrest and subsequent guilty plea were the “hardest, most difficult [parts] of
my life.”
He added that since his expulsion from the City Council,
he’s found a humbling job as property manager at a Brooklyn apartment building,
where he’s responsible for tasks such as “fixing a clogged toilet” and
repairing broken windows.
His attorney, Henry E. Mazurek, urged the judge impose a
non-prison sentence, arguing Deutsch has suffered enough by losing his City
Council seat and will be forced to sell his home to earn enough money to pay
the restitution he owes.
Mazurek also highlighted a career of good deeds done by
Deutsch, who was born to Holocaust survivors and raised in a modest household
in Long Beach and later in Brooklyn.
In a statement after the hearing, Mazurek said the prison
sentence will do little to deter other tax cheats, but will cause Deustch and
his family “terrible damage.”
“Unfortunately, our criminal justice culture only knows the
beat of a single drum. To incarcerate is not the only way to remediate,” he
said in the statement.
Deutsch pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor charge for
evading paying $82,076 in property taxes between 2013 and 2015.
At the sentencing hearing, prosecutor Eli Mark said he only
stopped the scheme because he realized he’d be caught.
“As an elected official and community leader, Deutsch had a
particular responsibility to follow the law,” US Attorney Audrey Straus said
after his guilty plea in April. “Instead, over a multi-year period, Deutsch
concealed his true business income to avoid paying his fair share of taxes.”
Margaret Garnett, Commissioner of the New York City
Department of Investigation, whose office worked with federal investigators to
bring the case, praised the sentence in a statement Thursday.
“Public servants only serve themselves when they break the
law while purporting to be leaders upholding integrity and high standards,” she
said.
“Now, this defendant rightly pays a high cost for his tax
fraud: conviction, the loss of his seat on the New York City Council, three
months of incarceration, a $5,500 fine, and repaying the IRS the taxes he owes
plus interest,” she added.
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