MARLBORO – A township man will be spending 19 months in prison following his guilty plea for defrauding the government out of nearly $1 million in taxes.
Bilal Salaj, 56, pled guilty in 2020 to tax evasion, failure to pay payroll taxes and conspiracy, according to United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss.
He operated a construction business in Manhattan and placed the company in the name of a person who worked for him according to investigation documents. Salaj ordered the unnamed third party to cash about $3.2 million in business checks from 2014 to June 2019.
According to prosecutors, Salaj used the funds to pay cash wages to his employees, spending the rest on personal expenses.
Strauss stated, “Salaj failed to pay his tax obligations to the IRS and maintained a cash payroll for his business while cheating the government out of almost $1 million.”
Along with the prison sentence, Salaj was ordered to pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of $952,778 and to serve three years of supervised release, according to Strauss.
