A scheme to turn waste paper into green paper resulted in two Fairfield County men going to prison. Senior U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas sentenced Ronald A. Lupica, 63, of Norwalk, to 15 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Lupica also agreed to repay ARC $1.4 million as well as $249,111 plus interest to the IRS for taxes on unreported income made through the fraud.
Last month, Nevas sentenced Daniel Arciola to a year and a day in prison for tax evasion.
Lupica and Arciola, a former quality control specialist for ARC, diverted waste paper collected by ARC to paper mills for recycling. Lupica created Empire Trucking, a nonexistent company. From mid-1999 to August 2002, the pair issued invoices to the mills claiming the nonexistent Empire Trucking was an ARC subsidiary. The mills paid Empire $1.4 million during the time.
To conceal this income, neither man reported it to the IRS.
Lupica received $323,727 from the scheme in 2000 but failed to file a tax return that would have required him to pay $104,124 in taxes. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion, mail fraud and bankruptcy fraud.
ARC is owned by James Galante, the Fairfield County trash magnate, who is under federal indictment for violating racketeering laws. That case involves evidence that the Genovese Crime Family helped Galante control trash hauling in Fairfield and Westchester County.
