News  Winchester Man Pleads Guilty, Sentenced in Connection With Tobacco Tax Fraud Scheme

Boston — A Winchester man pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Wednesday in connection with a tobacco tax fraud scheme, Attorney General Maura Healey announced today.

Timothy F. Sullivan, age 69, of Winchester pleaded guilty on Monday in Suffolk Superior Court to charges of Willful Filing of False Tax Returns (1 count), Failure to File Tax Returns (1 count), Knowing Possession with Intent to Sell 12,000 or more cigarettes (1 count).  He was sentenced by Judge William F. Sullivan to a three-year probationary term on all three counts and ordered to pay the entire tax due of more than $417,000.  

Sullivan owned Infinite Images (d/b/a Cigar Emporium) in Woburn. From May 2015 to June 2017, Sullivan knowingly purchased more than 300,000 cigarettes in packs at Hanscom Air Force Base that lacked Massachusetts excise stamps and resold them at Cigar Emporium. 

Between July 2012 to October 2015, Sullivan filed false state cigar and smoking tobacco tax forms, and from January 2016 to October 2016, failed to file those tax forms for Infinite Images with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR). During those periods, Sullivan reported to the DOR the purchasing and selling of approximately $3,500 of cigars and $900 of smoking tobacco but failed to report over $900,000 of cigars and smoking tobacco that he purchased and sold during those periods.

In total, Sullivan failed to pay over $417,000 to DOR in cigarette and cigar and smoking tobacco excise tax. He was arraigned in Middlesex Superior Court in June.

Representatives from the AG’s Office, DOR, the Massachusetts State Police, Office of the State Treasurer, Executive Office of Public Safety and the Department of Public Health are working together on the Illegal Tobacco Task Force, which was created to combat contraband tobacco distribution throughout the state through civil and criminal investigative and enforcement actions.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant Attorney General Paula DeGiacomo of the AG’s White Collar and Public Integrity Division. The case was investigated by Senior Investigator Molly Parks of the AG’s Financial Investigations Division, the Illegal Tobacco Task Force, and Peter French of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue’s Criminal Investigations Bureau, with assistance from Massachusetts State Police assigned to the AG’s Office, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Woburn Police Department.