| ALBANY, NY – District Attorney P. David Soares announced today that JUAN REYNOSO-FABIAN, 45, was sentenced to 3 ½ to 10 ½ years in State Prison for his involvement in counterfeiting New York State cigarette tax stamps. REYNOSO-FABIAN was found guilty of (10) Counts of Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the First Degree, all Class C Felonies, and (1) Count of Willful Possession of Cigarettes in Packages Bearing False and Counterfeit Stamps, a Class E Felony, before the Hon. Judge Stephen Herrick in Albany County Court on June 29, 2012 after a week-long jury trial.
On August 27, 2011, members of the New York State Department of Tax and Finance conducted an inspection of the defendant’s store at 113 Central Avenue in the City of Albany. While inspecting the store and van that belonged to REYNOSO-FABIAN, they uncovered over $24,000.00 worth of untaxed and unlawfully stamped cigarettes and other untaxed tobacco products. These items were discovered with sheets of counterfeit New York State cigarette tax stamps and implements used for affixing those counterfeit stamps to packages of unstamped untaxed cigarettes.
“Taxes collected from cigarettes are used to provide financial resources to a variety of programs benefitting our citizens. The defendant deprived these programs of thousands and thousands of dollars,” said DA David Soares. “I am pleased that we have removed an individual that was identified to be responsible for a majority of the counterfeit cigarette schemes in the area and I applaud the work of the New York State Department of Tax and Finance for their diligence.”
The case was prosecuted by Benjamin Clark of the Financial Crimes Unit.
For more information, please contact Cecilia Logue.
###
|