Remember when I talked about contributions to Mark Boughton's re-election campaign in April 2003 looking A LOT LIKE the illegal campaign contributions Galante made to Boughton in October 2003.

Remember the person named Maria Rullo? Here, let's refresh your memory.

Kevin J. O'Connor, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that MARIA "Mary" RULLO, age 45, [...] waived indictment and pleaded guilty today before Senior United States District Judge Ellen Bree Burns in New Haven to one felony count of filing a false tax return.

According to documents filed with the Court and statements made in court, RULLO failed to report alimony income on personal tax returns she filed with the Internal Revenue Service. During the course of an investigation, the IRS obtained an affidavit signed by RULLO in 2003 in which she stated she received $40,000 in alimony, an amount that she omitted from her tax return for that year.

RULLO has agreed to pay $34,436 to the IRS for material omissions to her returns filed for the 2001 through 2004 tax years.

Judge Burns has scheduled sentencing for October 19, 2007, at which time RULLO faces a maximum term of imprisonment of three years and a fine of up to $100,000.

RULLO was released on a $25,000 non-surety bond and was ordered not to have any direct or indirect contact with the defendants and witnesses named in United States v. Ianniello, et al, Case Number 3:06cr161(EBB).

Lets take a look at Case Number 3:06cr161, United States v. Ianniello, et al. and see which witness and defendants Rullo should have no direct or indirect contact with.

The defendant Matthew Ianniello is the 86 year old former acting boss of the Genovese Organized Crime Family. Save for a period of approximately six years in the 1990s when he was incarcerated on racketeering charges, Mr. Ianniello has for decades served the Genovese family well as one of its top "earners." At this late junction in his career, Mr. Ianniello faces in this case a term of incarceration of 24 to 30 months and a fine of $4,000 to $40,000. For the reasons that follow, the government respectfully submits that a sentence at the high end of this range - to be served concurrent to a 15 month sentence recently imposed in another district - is appropriate.


BACKGROUND
On December 20, 2006, the defendant pleaded guilty to Count Two of the Indictment, which charges that he and others engaged in a racketeering conspiracy designed to control Connecticut's refuse industry, and Count Sixty-Two, which charges him with conspiring to defraud the United States Revenue Service (IRS). See 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) (Racketeering Conspiracy) and 18 U.S.C. § 371 ("Klein conspiracy"). The defendant faces a maximum term of incarceration of twenty years on Count Two and a maximum term of incarceration of five years on Count Sixty-Two.

In this case, the government conducted eleven months of court-authorized

wiretaps on a number of telephones connected to James Galante, owner of

approximately twenty-nine carting-related entities in southwestern Connecticut. (PSR at ¶ 15) The wiretaps ran from August 2004 to July 2005, at which point law enforcement officials executed over thirty-five search warrants, including searches of Mr. Ianniello's residence and Mr. Galante's office. Agents seized thousands of boxes of documents, including a sheet of paper from Galante's office that listed a series of quarterly payments made by Galante to the defendant between August 2001 and April 2005. The payments stopped after the government executed the aforementioned searches in July 2005.

With respect to the search of Mr. Ianniello's residence, the Connecticut FBI seized approximately $130,680 in cash. In addition to the wiretaps and searches, agents interviewed many witnesses connected to the case.

This Court authorized wiretaps on phones utilized by, among others, Galante, Richard Galietti (Galante's lead salesman), Christopher Rayner (accountant to defendants Milo and Galante), Ciro Viento (Galante's operations manager), and Richard Caccavale (Galante employee).

To date, Viento and Caccavale have pleaded guilty to the racketeering conspiracy charged in Count Two; the other listed defendants await trial.

Well, another in a long list of newspapers is took notice and is connecting the dots.

A 45-year-old New Fairfield woman who once worked at Danbury's Automated Waste Disposal was sentenced to 30 days in federal prison for filing a false tax return.

Senior U.S. District Judge Ellen Burns last Friday ordered Maria "Mary" Rullo, to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on Nov. 20.

"Rullo repeatedly lied to federal investigators," said Tom Carson, for the U. S. Attorney's office.

Rullo came to the attention of the Internal Revenue Service during the federal investigation of AWD owner James Galante. The IRS had been interviewing people about "no-show" employees at AWD.

Prosecutors said Rullo provided false information to the IRS and the FBI while they were investigating her former boss' trash hauling companies in western Connecticut. They also said she improperly received health care benefits and failed to tell federal agents about certain cash transactions she conducted.

Hmm, I wonder what "cash transactions that could be...would one of those transactions have something to do with a certain mayor...

According to prosecutors, Rullo failed to report alimony and other income on personal tax returns she filed with the IRS.

During the investigation, IRS investigators obtained an affidavit signed by Rullo in 2003 that said she received $40,000 in alimony payments that year, an amount she omitted from her tax return.

[...]

Rullo pleaded guilty in July to a one-count felony indictment charging her with filing a false tax return.

U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor said, "This office will vigorously prosecute attempts to defraud the IRS. This case, which included a term of incarceration, indicates that federal courts treat tax fraud as a serious offense that requires appropriate punishment."

Okay, think about it. The FEDS don't go after someone over something as small as tax evasion when the big fish is Galante.

Somewhere at City Hall on thie third floor, someone is really nervous.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.