CLEVELAND Contractor to be sentenced in tax case

The fugitive's brother helped the government convict a congressman.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
CLEVELAND -- Five years after he fled to Cuba, wealthy contractor Robert T. Bucci will be sentenced for stiffing the IRS.
Bucci, 57, formerly of Canfield, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to charges of conspiracy to defraud the IRS, false tax returns and tax evasion.
Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. set sentencing for Dec. 3.
Based on his 15-page plea agreement, Bucci faces 30 to 46 months in prison.
He has agreed to meet with IRS agents to pay taxes, penalties and interest for 1973, 1975, 1992, 1993 and 1994. He will also cooperate with an audit of his finances, including any business he had an interest in, from 1995 to the present, to determine his tax liability.
Nothing in the plea agreement requires a specified amount of tax or limits the IRS in the collection of taxes owed. The parties agree that, for sentencing purposes, the tax loss is more than $325,000 but less than $550,000, excluding interest and penalties.
The U.S. attorney's office has agreed to bring no additional charges related to his flight in December 1998 to avoid prosecution. The plea agreement was signed by Bucci; his Cleveland lawyer, Robert J. Rotatori; and Steven Dettlebach, an assistant U.S. attorney.
Falsified books
Bucci and his brother, Anthony R. Bucci, once owned Asphalt Specialist Inc., then Prime Contractors, both in Girard. In 1995, Robert Bucci spent about $21,000 to pay for a boat, and a portion of the funds came from Prime, whose books he falsified to cover the boat and other personal expenses, according to the plea agreement.
The government discovered that the Buccis had transferred millions of dollars to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. The money was from front companies the brothers had created.
U.S. marshals and Drug Enforcement Administration agents worked with Panamanian officials to locate and arrest Bucci in May at the airport in Panama City, Panama, where he'd gone on a business trip, U.S. Marshal Peter J. Elliott has said. Bucci "thought he'd get away with it by hiding out in Cuba, which has no extradition" treaty with the United States, the marshal said after Bucci's capture.
Testified against Traficant
In February 2002, during the racketeering trial of then-U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., Anthony Bucci was a prosecution witness. Bucci testified that he tried in vain in the late 1980s to collect nearly $13,000 from Traficant for work done at the congressman's horse farm and even threatened a lawsuit.
With the debt forgiven, Traficant interceded on the Buccis' behalf with federal and state agencies whenever needed until 1996.
Anthony Bucci, who moved to Florida from Liberty in the summer of 1999, admitted that, over the years, he cheated the IRS, paid bribes to ex-Mahoning County Engineer William P. Fergus and ran scams on the Ohio Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Labor.
In May 1999, Anthony Bucci pleaded guilty to mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the IRS. Looking for a way to reduce his pending 18- to 24-month sentence, he went with his lawyer to the FBI in August 1999 with what he knew about Traficant.
The government then launched its investigation of Traficant, which ended with the 62-year-old Traficant's getting an eight-year prison sentence in July 2002. A jury found Traficant guilty of racketeering, bribery and tax evasion.
In June 2002, Anthony Bucci was sentenced to two years' probation, with the first six weeks confined to his Florida home.
meade@vindy.com