Ex-Irondequoit police chief to serve federal time
A retired Irondequoit police chief will be heading to federal prison for six months for defrauding the Internal Revenue Service and taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford Wednesday sentenced Alan Laird, who retired 13 months ago as Irondequoit’s police chief, to six months and to a year of probation, including six months of home detention. She gave the same sentence to Steven Rosenbaum, Laird’s business partner in the security firm Swoop 1.
The two swindled the IRS out of payroll and personal income taxes by not reporting income for the security firm and by not reporting money paid to security guards, many of them retired and current police officers.
At separate sentencings, both men spoke of humiliation they’d brought to their families and of remorse for their crimes. The message from Judge Wolford to both was similar: Actions have consequences and both men, as former police officers, received the benefits of the very tax system they defrauded.
“This is a sad case,” Wolford told Laird. “Both cases are sad.”
Rosenbaum also is a retired Irondequoit police officer.
Hundreds of thousands not reported to IRS
Laird cheated the IRS out of nearly $430,000 with unreported personal income taxes between 2016 and 2021, while Rosenbaum’s fraud with unreported personal income tax was about $355,000. Both split the same amount of unreported business revenue, but the payment was different because of individual factors with their income tax reporting.
The business also did not pay about $205,000 in payroll taxes. Defense lawyers said full restitution will be completed this week.
At his plea Rosenbaum said that he was the one who cashed checks from vendors at a check cashing business and paid employees in cash. Laird has said he was aware of the practice when he bought into the business in 2016 but did not stop it. Rosenbaum then was a co-owner of the company.
“You should have stopped it,” Wolford told Laird. “Instead you allowed the practice to continue and you reaped the benefits of it.”
Large security firm
Swoop 1, which has been sold and is expected to operate under a new name, was a major security firm in the community, providing security to concerts and school districts, including the East Irondequoit School District when Laird was the town’s police chief.
Both Laird and Rosenbaum remained free after Wednesday’s sentencing and will begin their sentences next year after a date is set by the federal Bureau of Prisons.
The sentencing guidelines, which are advisory for federal judges, recommended a sentence of 18 to 24 months for each men. Wolford noted the public service of the two men and their crime-free record in her decision for a sentence lower than the recommendations.
The original plea called for guidelines of 24 to 30 months but they were recently changed to benefit individuals with no criminal record.
Wolford noted that Swoop 1 paid workers more than $2.6 million in cash. That practice wouldn’t be illegal if reported to the IRS.
“That’s an awful lot of cash that was handed out to employees,” she said.
The IRS has not answered whether there are any investigations into whether Swoop 1 employees properly paid taxes. The IRS typically does not acknowledge whether an investigation exists or not.