BOSTON – The owner of George H. Richard & Son Roofing in Milton, Mass., has been sentenced in a Boston federal court for filing a false tax return that failed to disclose about $2.1 million in business receipts.   

Harry S. Richard, 68, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to one year and one day in prison, one year of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $353,246.

Richard pleaded guilty in May to one count of filing a false individual tax return.

Richard owned and operated Richard Roofing, a business established by his great-grandfather in 1865, according to a release from the U.S. District Attorney’s office in Boston.

From 2010 through 2013, Richard deposited the bulk of the payments he received for roofing services into his personal bank accounts and failed to disclose those receipts to his tax return preparer or on his tax returns.

Many of the checks he received from his customers were made payable to Richard personally, at his direction. Over the course of four years, Richard failed to report more than $2.1 million in business receipts on his tax returns, and thereby avoided paying taxes totaling about $353,246.

U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling and Kristina O’Connell, special agent in charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark J. Balthazard of Lelling’s Economic Crimes Unit prosecuted the case.