Toms River Attorney Sentenced to 6 Months For Tax Evasion

A Toms River attorney will spend six months in jail and six months under house arrest after pleading guilty to charges of tax evasion and failing to pay employer payroll taxes.

Lee Gottesman, 58, received his sentence in Trenton federal court Tuesday. Judge Freda L. Wolfson also ordered Gottesman to pay all taxes owed from 2006 to the present, a total of $27,384.99.

According to court documents, Gottesman ran nearly all of his personal and business expenses through through an attorney trust account in the name of his wife, closing all other business and personal accounts in his name, despite the IRS levying his assets due to unpaid taxes in 2002.

His payments from the account included more than $90,000 in mortgage payments for his home, more than $17,000 in household expenses, including maintenance on his pool, landscaping services and construction costs and thousands of dollars in other personal expenses, such as life insurance premiums, auto body repair work and personal credit card payments.

The scheme allowed Gottesman to avoid paying personal income taxes on the hidden income, prosecutors charged.

Gottesman also withheld payroll and other taxes from his employees’ pay, but never filed the required forms or turned the withheld payments over to the IRS. Gottesman specifically admitted he did not pay all his personal income taxes owed for 2006 or payroll taxes for 2009.

In addition to the prison term and back tax payments, Wolfson sentenced Gottesman to three years of supervised release.