Indicted Former Mayor of Toms River Returns to United States to Face Federal Tax Charges in New Jersey

NEWARK—Carmine C. Inteso, Jr., the former mayor of the Township of Toms River, New Jersey, was arrested late last night on tax evasion charges by IRS–Criminal Investigation and FBI special agents upon his return to the United States from Afghanistan, where he had been working as a contractor, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

A six-count indictment—returned by a Newark federal grand jury on November 10, 2011, and unsealed June 25, 2012—charges Inteso, 46, of Toms River, New Jersey, with three counts of federal personal income tax evasion and three counts of failing to file federal personal income tax returns for calendar years 2006, 2007, and 2008.

Inteso allegedly took a job in Afghanistan after learning he was the target of the tax investigation and, after returning to the United States last night, was taken into custody at New York’s John F. Kennedy International airport. Inteso appeared this afternoon in Newark federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Falk and was released on a $200,000 bond. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Joel A. Pisano in Trenton, before whom Inteso will be arraigned on a date to be determined.

According to the indictment:

From 2002 through 2007, Inteso held the positions of township committee member, mayor, deputy mayor, and councilman for the township of Toms River, formerly known as Dover Township.

Beginning in 2005 and continuing through 2008, Inteso accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from an insurance broker based in Towson, Maryland, whose companies provided insurance brokerage services for New Jersey municipal entities—including the Brick Township Board of Education and the Township of Toms River. Inteso directed the insurance broker to make the payments to a company Inteso controlled and that had ceased operating by 2007.

Inteso used the funds to pay for his personal expenses and withdrew significant amounts of cash. Despite receiving approximately $291,000 in income from the insurance broker during calendar years 2006, 2007, and 2008, Inteso failed to file personal income taxes for those years.

Each of the three tax evasion counts carries a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Each of the three failure to file counts carries a maximum potential penalty of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, under the direction of John R. Tafur, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Newark Field Office; and the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward, with the investigation leading to the indictment. The Office of International Affairs in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and the Diplomatic Security Service’s Regional Security Office in Kabul, Afghanistan, provided invaluable assistance.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee M. Cortes, Jr., of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Special Prosecutions Division in Newark.

The charges and allegations contained in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.