Sacramento businessman charged with evading millions in customs duties on imported shoes

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal grand jury returned a 27-count indictment Thursday against a Sacramento-area businessman following a probe by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) that allegedly revealed the defendant orchestrated an elaborate fraud scheme to avoid paying millions of dollars in duties on imported Chinese-made footwear.

Thomas Romeo, 51, of Sacramento, is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States, four counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of entry of falsely classified goods, and 11 counts of entry of goods by means of a false statement. Romeo, who owns a Citrus Heights import business, made his initial appearance in federal court Thursday afternoon. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd A. Pickles.

According to the indictment, Romeo's company, Romeo & Juliette Inc., imported Chinese-made footwear and distributed it under the brand names BearPaw and Attix. The indictment alleges that from at least 1994 through 2011, Romeo engaged in a scheme to avoid paying the full amount of duty owed by having employees and others create false invoices substantially undervaluing the imported footwear, sometimes at 50 percent of the actual value and other times even less. Romeo had his employees submit the false invoices to U.S. Customs for purposes of calculating the duties and fees Romeo & Juliette owed. Over the course of the scheme, Romeo allegedly avoided paying approximately $5.6 million in customs duties.

During the course of the investigation, Romeo provided federal agents with a false document attempting to justify the lower duty his company paid to the United States. He also instructed employees to make false statements to federal investigators about the value of the imported footwear.

If convicted, Romeo faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the loss or gain caused by the fraud on the wire fraud counts. The maximum statutory prison term is five years on the conspiracy count and two years for causing the entry of goods falsely classified and causing the entry of goods by false statements.