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OWNER
OF TRASH EMPIRE SENTENCED TO MORE THAN SEVEN YEARS IN FEDERAL
PRISON
Nora
R. Dannehy, Acting United States Attorney for the District
of Connecticut, announced that JAMES GALANTE,
55, of New Fairfield, Connecticut, was sentenced today by Senior
United States District Judge Ellen Bree Burns in New Haven to 87
months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release,
for his leadership of an extensive racketeering enterprise uncovered
after a long-term investigation into the waste-hauling industry
in Connecticut and eastern New York. Judge Burns also ordered GALANTE
to pay a fine in the amount of $100,000.
“I want to credit the outstanding investigative work performed by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation
Division, the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, the Connecticut
State Police and several other law enforcement agencies that led to this successful
prosecution,” stated Acting U.S. Attorney Dannehy. “Their extraordinary
efforts broke the back of an entrenched criminal enterprise that, for years,
denied customers competitive pricing and threatened those who didn’t
play along. This prosecution and the sentence imposed today has sent a clear
message
to the waste industry that this kind of criminal conduct will not be tolerated.”
According to documents filed with the Court and statements made in court, GALANTE
was the majority owner of 25 trash companies located in western Connecticut,
including Automated Waste Disposal (AWD), Diversified Waste Disposal (DWD), Superior
Waste Disposal (SWD) and Transfer Systems, Inc. (TSI). On June 8, 2006, a grand
jury in New Haven returned an Indictment charging GALANTE and others with various
violations of federal law, including racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, mail
and wire fraud, witness tampering, tax fraud and conspiracy charges. On June
12, 2007, GALANTE and others were charged in a Superseding Indictment. On June
3, 2008, GALANTE pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the federal
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), one count of conspiring
to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, and one count of conspiring to commit
wire fraud.
In addition to pleading guilty to the criminal charges, GALANTE has forfeited
(1) the entirety of his ownership interests in 25 trash hauling companies;
(2) a residence located at 530 Main Street North, Southbury, Connecticut and
adjoining
parcels of land; (3) six racing cars; (4) a Featherlite Trailer used to haul
the racing cars; (5) $448,153.10 in United States currency, and all accrued
interest, that was seized from GALANTE’s business office and his home.
“The United States Marshals Service has monitored this extensive waste
hauling operation for more than two years,” Acting U.S. Attorney Dannehy
said. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office will work closely with the Marshals
as these once-corrupt companies are forfeited and sold in order to help insure
that they are placed in the hands of reputable parties and the public interest
is served.”
With respect to the racketeering conspiracy charge, GALANTE has admitted that,
in 2005, he attempted to fix a bid for the operation of a transfer station
in Connecticut. Specifically, GALANTE wanted to insure that the transfer station
would be operated by a specific individual and directed several of his co-conspirators
to attempt to rig the bid. For example, on or about January 25, 2005, pursuant
to GALANTE’s instructions, Ciro Viento, an operations manager at AWD and
affiliated companies, spoke to an individual who worked for another trash hauling
company in order to give him a “heads up” about an open bid to operate
the Connecticut transfer station and, more specifically, to insure that this
individual not win the bid. The attempt to fix the bid ultimately failed when
another company submitted a competitive bid. On January 28, 2005, Viento spoke
with a representative of the company that won the bid to operate the transfer
station. The individual apologized for having won the bid, stating “...you
didn’t tell me till late that you owned it . . . . I didn’t have
a chance to put the snuff on it before the bid went in.”
GALANTE also has admitted that he instructed another co-conspirator to tamper
with a witness scheduled to appear before the grand jury. During the course
of the investigation, GALANTE learned that “Witness A” had been subpoenaed
to testify before the grand jury. The defendant met with Witness A to review
questions that federal prosecutors might ask. GALANTE told Witness A to “go
over the answers” with another person because GALANTE did not want to get
in trouble for obstructing justice. At a later date, at the direction of GALANTE,
one of his co-conspirators contacted Witness A at GALANTE’s business
headquarters to go over the questions that might arise before the grand jury.
The co-conspirator
instructed Witness A how to answer questions on several subjects, including
those that were material to the ongoing racketeering investigation. Specifically,
the
co-conspirator told Witness A to lie to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and the grand jury about providing cash on behalf of GALANTE and others to
Joseph
Milo, which would have been a material fact at trial.
As for GALANTE’s participation in the conspiracy to defraud the I.R.S.,
according to documents filed with the Court and statements made by the prosecutor,
GALANTE and others operated a multiple object scheme to defraud the I.R.S. with
respect to both GALANTE’s personal returns and certain corporate returns.
In part, this scheme involved (1) preparing false and fraudulent expense checks
that were paid to GALANTE; (2) placing a number of no-show employees on the
payrolls of trash hauling companies and deducting the expenses related to these
employees,
including their salaries, health care costs, and expenses associated with the
use of free cars, on corporate tax returns; (3) filing of false tax returns
for 530 Main Street North, a company whose only asset was a house occupied
by a co-conspirator;
(4) providing payroll kickbacks to GALANTE from certain employees who received
an extra paycheck that was cashed and provided to GALANTE, and (5) skimming
cash from various business operations. Under the terms of the plea agreement,
GALANTE
has agreed to pay the I.R.S. $1,637,129.89 in back taxes, interest, and penalties.
With respect to GALANTE’s conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to
statements made in court, GALANTE was the owner of the Danbury Trashers of the
United Hockey League during the 2004-2005 season. In pleading guilty, GALANTE
admitted that he circumvented the League’s $275,000 annual salary cap by
causing other co-conspirators to prepare and fax fraudulent salary cap reports
to the UHL office in Iowa on approximately 30 different occasions. GALANTE admitted
that he knew the salary cap reports were false, as he was aware that several
Trashers players were receiving income above what was reported to the League.
GALANTE admitted that he personally made the decision to pay several players
$100,000 in salary for the 2004-2005 season. Additionally, several Trashers players
and/or their spouses were on the payroll of various waste hauling companies even
though they performed no work for those companies. Certain players also received
additional unreported compensation in the form of double housing allowance payments
and/or cash bonuses that were not reported to the League. With these supplemented
salaries, the Trashers’ total payroll for the 2004-2005 season was approximately
$750,000.
As a condition of his guilty plea, GALANTE is required to withdraw from participating
in the trash industry in the United States.
On March 26, 2007, Ciro Viento pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate
the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. He currently
is serving a 30-month term of imprisonment.
On September 6, 2006, Joseph Milo pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to
defraud the Internal Revenue Service. On August 29, 2007, he was sentenced to
six months of home confinement.
To date, 33 individuals and 10 businesses have been charged with various offenses
as a result of this investigation. Thirty-two individuals have pleaded guilty.
This matter has been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation Division, the United
States Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, and the Connecticut
State Police. The United States Marshals Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s
Office of Professional Responsibility, and the Connecticut Department of Correction,
and the Ansonia, Milford and New Haven police departments have provided critical
assistance in the Investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Michael
J. Gustafson, Raymond F. Miller, Henry K. Kopel and Anthony Kaplan are prosecuting
this case.
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