“Jersey Shore” star Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino and his brother were hit with additional tax fraud charges on Friday after federal prosecutors say they filed fake tax returns and claimed luxury car and clothing purchases were business expenses.
Federal prosecutors said Friday that Michael Sorrentino was indicted on charges including tax evasion, structuring bank deposits to avoid reporting requirements and falsifying records. Marc Sorrentino was charged with falsifying records to obstruct a grand jury investigation.
They previously pleaded not guilty to charges in 2014 alleging that they filed bogus tax returns on nearly $9 million and claimed millions in personal expenses, including luxury cars and clothes, as business expenses.
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Michael Sorrentino’s attorney Henry Klingeman said his client will enter a not guilty plea when they brothers appear in court April 17 and will “vigorously contest the allegations in court.”
Marc Sorrentino’s attorney did not return a phone call Friday seeking comment.
In the superseding indictment announced Friday, Michael Sorrentino was charged with failing to file a personal tax return in 2011 and filing fake corporate returns for one of the companies the brothers set up after he gained fame on the show. Prosecutors say he also made a series of bank deposits of under $10,000 to avoid bank reporting requirements.
After the brothers were served with grand jury subpoenas seeking records from their companies, prosecutors allege Marc Sorrentino falsified records to reclassify taxable payments to himself as non-taxable payments and business deductions.
They both face up to five years in prisons on the conspiracy charge they face if convicted, and Marc Sorrentino faces up to 20 years in prison.
Michael Sorrentino appeared on all six seasons of the MTV reality TV show “Jersey Shore,” which followed the lives of a group of young Italian-Americans at a house on New Jersey’s famed Atlantic shore and ran from 2009 to 2012.