The former chief financial officer of the Boston Grand Prix was arrested Tuesday on charges that he failed to report income he received from serving with the organization on his federal tax returns and for a scheme to defraud equipment and small business financing companies.
John F. Casey, 56, of Ipswich, Massachusetts, was indicted on eight counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, three counts of money laundering and three counts of filing false tax returns, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Tuesday.
He is scheduled to appear in federal court in Boston at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.
The indictment alleges that the Boston Grand Prix paid Casey more than $900,000 in 2015 and 2016, and that he failed to include those payments in the income he claimed on his personal tax returns for those years.
The indictment also alleges that Casey owned an ice rink in Peabody between October 2013 and June 1, 2016. Between October 2014 and October 2016, he obtained over $743,000 in funds from equipment financing companies, purportedly for the purchase of equipment for the ice rink. In August 2016, more than two months after he sold the rink, Casey obtained over $145,000 in small business loans for the rink business. In order to secure the financing, he allegedly submitted materially false documents and information, including fake invoices for the equipment, bank records purporting to show deposits into Casey’s accounts related to the rink, falsely inflated personal and corporate tax returns, and personal financial statements falsely claiming ownership and value of various assets.
He also allegedly submitted a fake deed of sale containing a forged signature in support of one of his loan applications, according to the indictment. Relying on his false statements, the financing companies provided funding to him in amounts and on terms they otherwise would not have made. Most of the funds provided by the victim companies were never repaid.
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Casey is also charged with laundering the proceeds of his fraud scheme, and with failing to include the income from his fraud scheme on his 2014, 2015 and 2016 personal federal tax returns.
Boston Grand Prix filed for bankruptcy in July 2016 after its plans to organize an IndyCar race collapsed earlier in the year.
Casey was also charged back in 2017 with assault and battery after he allegedly kicked a Boston Herald photographer in Salem District Court. He was in court that day for a hearing as part of a civil suit.
