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CLEVELAND (WJW) — For years their lifestyles included extravagant gambling trips, luxury vehicles, country club memberships and stacks of cash and silver at multiple properties. All the while the two Northeast Ohio men were running illegal gambling businesses in Canton and working hard to thwart the IRS.
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Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Ohio announced Christos Karasarides Jr., 59, of Canton and Ronald DiPietro, 65, of Clinton were sentenced to years in prison and ordered to pay back millions in restitution.
They were previously found guilty this year of money laundering, gambling, tax, obstruction and conspiracy crimes that ran from 2009 through July 2018 and beyond.
The men were among 10 people indicted last July for various illegal gambling crimes.
Along with others, the two had illegal businesses like Skilled Shamrock and Redemption, where customers could come and play slots. Skilled Shamrock alone, according to court documents, raked in about $34 million between 2012 and 2017, netting a $7 million profit. None of which was taxed.
The IRS was onto the two, and DiPietro, a now former certified public accountant, helped his business partner falsify his tax returns. Karasarides also asked multiple people to lie for him during the investigation into his affairs, court documents showed.
“In total, Karasarides caused a tax loss to the IRS of $5.4 million and DiPietro caused a tax loss to the IRS of $4.7 million,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
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Karasarides was sentenced to a little more than 21 years in prison and must pay $5,541,520 to the federal government, and also give up his house and more than $400,000 in cash. DiPietro has to serve a little more than nine years in prison, and is ordered to pay a restitution of $4,763,520. Both men are seeing three years of supervision upon release.
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