A New Rochelle valet parking businessman has been sentenced to prison for more than three years for evading federal taxes and stealing Social Security disability benefits.
U.S. District Judge Philip M. Halpern sentenced 63-year-old James C. Pavlounis to 37 months in prison and 3 years of supervision after he is released, and ordered him to pay $895,181 in restitution, March 19 in White Plains federal court.
“Pavlounis spent 12 years lying, manipulating, and stealing to defraud” the Social Security Administration, Assistant U.S. Attorney Margery B. Feinzig stated in a sentencing letter to the judge, “and for five of those years he also lied and cheated to defraud the IRS.”
Pavlounis’s ISP Parking Management Inc. and Select Parking Systems Inc. provided parking attendants and valet parking for restaurants and country clubs in New Rochelle.
His legs were crushed in a 2009 car accident and hurt in a 2014 hit-and-run car accident; bone cancer caused more damage; he needed pelvic, hip and femur replacements; and he relies on a cane and a wheelchair to get around, defense attorney Jane White states in a sentencing memorandum. And “during his time of need,” his wife of 12 years abandoned him and took their two daughters.
Business, Pavlounis stated in a letter to the judge, was his “getaway from my horrible life.”
ISP Parking was incorporated in 2012 and Select Parking was formed in 2015.
In 2011, Pavlounis began collecting Social Security disability benefits. When he did not disclose his valet parking businesses income, as required, he collected $640,000 to which he was not entitled.
From 2018 to 2022, he evaded nearly $249,000 in corporate taxes by creating false business expense records as he pocketed the money for personal expenses.
Last year, Pavlounis pleaded guilty to wire fraud and five charges of tax evasion.
The U.S. Probation and Parole Office calculated that he could be imprisoned for 37 to 46 months, under federal sentencing guidelines. The agency recommended 18 months.
Defense attorney White urged the judge to sentence Pavlounis to home confinement and five years of probation.
“His greatest suffering has been as a result of his ex-wife’s abandonment and deprivation of his ability to see his children, as well as the medical issues that have plagued his late adulthood,” White stated in the sentencing memo.
Besides mobility issues, he suffers from hypertension, heart disease, low white cell blood count, sleep apnea, arthritis and other conditions. Federal prisons are understaffed, she argued, and unable to give him the treatment he needs to survive.
In prison, “his health would certainly get progressively worse and could ultimately amount to a death sentence.”
Feinzig, the assistant prosecutor, advised the judge that imprisonment within the federal guideline range of 37 to 46 months would be appropriate.
Money that Pavlounis claimed as business expenses supported a high standard of living: a luxury apartment in New Rochelle, leased cars, dining, and credit card bills.
Federal prisons take care of many inmates with serious medical conditions, she noted, and she described Pavlounis’s mobility problems as exaggerated.
Employees told IRS agents that Pavlounis, without using a cane, managed his crews, often parked cars himself, and cleaned up a parking lot.
Agents who surveilled him saw him running errands and putting air in a car tire, without using a cane. One day, they went to his apartment to interview him. When Pavlounis came to the door he was not using a cane, but after the agents identified themselves he got the cane and used it.
“Pavlounis has shown himself to be someone who lies to get what he wants,” Feinzig stated, “is not trustworthy, manipulates people, and does not now deserve the benefit of the doubt.”
Judge Halpern ordered Pavlounis to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on May 18.