A Scarsdale contractor who evaded personal income taxes from 2006 to 2021 has been ordered to pay nearly $828,000 to the IRS.
U.S. District Court Judge Philip M. Halpern also sentenced Filip Lala on April 24 to two years of supervised release, including 18 months of home confinement. An assistant prosecutor had recommended a prison sentence of no less than 10 months.
Voluntary tax compliance crumbles if businessmen think they can conceal income with impunity, assistant prosecutor Jeffrey C. Coffman stated in a sentencing memorandum.
“A term of imprisonment is indispensable in a case like this one, lest the crime perpetrated by the defendant breed(s) skepticism among honest taxpayers and lead(s) them to ask, Why follow the law if there are no meaningful consequences for flouting it?”
Lala, 51, who is also known as Fatimtar Lala, is an Albanian citizen who immigrated to the U.S. in 1992. He worked as a busboy in restaurants in Yonkers for four years, then started a landscaping business and eventually got into construction.
He owned five construction companies over the years. He also holds a majority ownership in Albanian Powerplant Construction Co. and has a deal with his native country to build, administer, and maintain three hydroelectric power plants.
Lala disguised his control of the local construction companies so as to evade personal income taxes, according to court records. He registered the businesses in the names of his wife and brother, while claiming he was unemployed. Meanwhile, the government says, he bought multiple houses, invested in the Albanian project, and drove a luxury car.
Some years, he filed no tax returns or claimed no income. From 2009 to 2011, for example, he claimed total income of $67 for three years, underreporting his actual income by $705,510.
Lala was arrested in September 2024 and charged with tax evasion and filing false tax returns. He pleaded guilty.
Under non-mandatory federal sentencing guidelines he could have been sentenced up to two-and-a-half years in prison and fined as much as $95,000. U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services concluded that Lala posed a low risk of recidivism, and recommended a 10-month sentence.
White Plains defense attorneys Lee David Auerbach and Michael. P. Kushner recommended no prison time. Their sentencing memo describes a “role model of a man who unfortunately made poor personal decisions.”
They emphasized what they characterized as Lala’s heroic side: escaping Communist rule in Albania and realizing the American dream, devotion to family and religion, cooperation with the government’s investigation, remorse, and acceptance of responsibility.
Lala has learned his lesson, the defense attorneys stated, and home confinement and monitoring will permit him to work, seek medical attention, and support his family. When the Albanian hydroelectric power plants are completed next year and he begins to receive cash distributions, they noted, he can use the funds to pay his IRS debt.
“Unlike many of the defendants who appear before this court,” prosecutor Coffman advised the judge, “Lala has enjoyed significant financial success and material comforts yet committed these serious crimes in spite of those advantages.”
Lala does not deserve the benefit of the doubt with respect to the court’s judgment of his character, Coffman said.
“Tellingly,” he said, “the defendant still has not paid his federal tax obligation.”
