Former Quincy Man Sentenced to Tax Evasion Schemes and Theft from Federal Housing Program

BOSTON – June 14, 2013 – (RealEstateRama) — A former Quincy man, now living in New Hampshire, was sentenced yesterday for carrying out two elaborate tax evasion schemes and theft of federal housing assistance funds.

Raymond C. Stebbins, 70, of Manchester, NH, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole, Jr. to three years in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release and restitution to the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development. In March 2013, Stebbins pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy, five counts of tax evasion, two counts of making false statements and theft of public money.

Stebbins was engaged in two ten-year long schemes – first, a false invoice scheme aimed at evading the ascertainment and assessment of income taxes and, second, a Section 8 housing fraud scheme.

In 2000, Christopher McGadden, the General Manager of Xcel Fire Protection, a fire protection indoor sprinkler business, engaged in a false invoice/tax evasion scheme with Stebbins. Stebbins purportedly owned numerous businesses, among them a trucking company, a moving company, a real estate company, and two or more business equipment resale companies. Stebbins prepared and sent bogus invoices in the names of the companies he purportedly owned to Xcel. The invoices falsely reflected that one of the Stebbins’ companies had provided goods or services to Xcel when they had not. Knowing the invoices were bogus, McGadden authorized Xcel to pay the invoices by check. Stebbins then deposited the Xcel checks into various bank accounts he had opened, structuring the withdrawals of funds from those accounts. Thereafter, Stebbins gave McGadden 90 percent of the proceeds of those checks in cash and kept 10 percent for himself. In addition, McGadden caused Xcel’s customers to write checks directly in the name of one of Stebbins’ companies. Stebbins deposited those checks in to his bank account and did the same 90/10 split with McGadden. Neither Stebbins nor McGadden paid the proper income taxes on the $490,000 they took from Xcel checks and certain Xcel customer checks.

In a second conspiracy, starting in December 1999, Stebbins conspired with another individual, identified as FV, to defraud the IRS. Stebbins carried out a nearly identical false invoice tax evasion scheme in which the two men fraudulently diverted more than $3.3 million in funds rightfully belonging to FV’s construction company based in Nashua, NH. This scheme, although larger in scope, worked virtually identically to Stebbins’ scheme with McGadden. Neither Stebbins nor FV paid the proper income taxes on the money they took from FV’s company checks.

For the tax years 2005 through 2009, Stebbins attempted to evade a large part of income tax he owed to the IRS by filing erroneous returns which under-reported his income.

Furthermore, Stebbins made false statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development when applying for the Section 8 Housing Assistance Program which provides housing assistance payments to people who need rent subsidy in order to obtain adequate housing.

Beginning in December 1997, Stebbins represented to HUD that he was unable to afford adequate housing. As a result, Stebbins received Section 8 benefits from June 1998 through May 2008. During this time, HUD periodically attempted to establish Stebbins’ continued eligibility for Section 8 benefits, and the level of those benefits, by sending him annual re-certification forms which requested information concerning his household income level and assets. Stebbins filled out the forms with false entries that under-reported his household income and assets. At the time he was receiving Section 8 benefits from HUD, Stebbins was an approved Section 8 housing assistance landlord for two multi-family properties, one in Quincy and another in Nashua, NH. Between January 1, 2002 and May 31, 2008, Stebbins effectively stole money from HUD in the form of Section 8 housing payments that he was not entitled to.

Judge O’Toole ordered Stebbins to report to the U.S. Marshal’s Office in Boston to begin serving his sentence on June 18, 2013.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; William P. Offord, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation in Boston; and Cary Rubenstein, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of the Inspector General, Northeast Regional Office, made the announcement today. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Freniere of Ortiz’s Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit.