11 bedrooms. 14 full baths. 5 half baths. 13 fireplaces. 32,400 square feet.
A home of that size, thought to be the largest in Pennsylvania, is sure to attract attention and that’s exactly what happened. According to local sources, federal agents flying in and out of Pittsburgh noticed the size and scope of a mansion belonging to Joe Nocito, Sr., and started asking questions. Those questions eventually led to a guilty plea last week from Ann E. Harris, the personal assistant, secretary and bookkeeper for Nocito, in a tax evasion scheme thought to involve as much as $250 million.
The charges against Harris were brought on information, instead of a grand jury indictment. When that happens, it generally means that the defendant has accepted the charges and is cooperating with the investigation.
Harris’ former boss, Nocito, built his fortune in real estate development and in health care as CEO of Automated Health Systems. The website for Automated Health Systems notes that Nocito has “provided financial guidance to AHS and has directed the fiscal affairs of the corporation as Chief Financial Officer since 1979.” Nocito is designated on the company’s site as a CPA although Pennsylvania’s CPA records indicate that a license belonging to Joseph W. Nocito (the only such name in the database) expired more than 10 years ago.
To date, Nocito has not been charged in the scheme. Nocito’s attorney, DiLucente is calling it “a tax dispute, nothing more.”
While it’s true that Nocito has not been charged or officially referred to by name as a target, Harris’ attorney, James DePasquale, indicated that the charges against his client were the result of her following instructions at her job for Nocito. DePasquale, said about his client:
Ann Harris is a good human being and a hard-working person. She was taking direction, and she did as she was told to do. That doesn’t relieve criminal responsibility, and she knows that. … She got caught up in something and will have to bite the bullet.
That “something” allegedly involved re-characterizing personal expenses for Nocito as business expenses. Those expenses, according to prosecutors, included paying for a down payment on a swimming pool and murals at the mansion’s gym disguised as consulting bills, monthly payments on a 2008 Rolls Royce Phantom disguised as corporate interest and private school tuition treated as “advertising” for the company. The specific charges, which span from tax years 2006 to 2012, include conspiring to “fraudulently pay for and unlawfully deduct as business expenses, millions of dollars in personal expenses of co-conspirator 1.”
Charges against co-conspirator 1 include filing false income tax returns from 2006 through 2012. Co-conspirator 1 remains unnamed at this time but the net appears to be closing in on Nocito.
This isn’t the first set of criminal charges involving the Nocito family in 2015. Earlier this year, Nocito’s son, Joseph W. Nocito, Jr. pleaded guilty to two felony counts of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and filing a false income tax return. According to information presented to the Court at the guilty plea, Nocito Jr. engaged in fraud related to the purchase of a home in Longboat Key, Florida; as part of the fraud, Nocito Jr. misrepresented to the bank the amount of his down payment and received nearly half a million dollars back as kickbacks. Nocito Jr. also pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return in that same tax year, 2007, reporting $88,269 in total adjusted gross income when it was really $529,619. Nocito Jr. will be sentenced on October 15, 2015. He faces up to eight years in prison, a fine of $500,000 or both.
