Federal Judge David Ezra has sentenced a Kailua woman to 30 months in prison and her husband to 24 months behind bars for attempting to avoid paying income taxes on money they made selling illegal fireworks in Hawai‘i from 1992 to 1994.
Annyse L. Cloutier, 51, and her husband, Ronald A. Cloutier, 53, were convicted in October after a two-week trial on one count of conspiring to file false income tax returns and for filing false tax returns for 1992, 1993 and 1994. The judge sentenced them Monday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Tong said that the Cloutiers were sales representatives for Pyrodyne America Corp. of Tacoma, Wash., and they imported fireworks for use on the Fourth of July and New Year’s .
Prosecutors said the Cloutiers distributed legal fireworks such as small firecrackers and sparklers to retail stores and neighborhood stands, and brought in long-strand firecrackers and aerial fireworks, which were sold for cash to friends and others.
An indictment brought against the Cloutiers charged them with failing to report $888,000 in income, most of it derived from the sale of illegal fireworks, and evading payment of approximately $135,000 in state and federal income taxes from 1992 to 1994, Tong said.
Tong said Pyrodyne officials established two accounts for the Cloutiers, one used to purchase what the company referred to as "safe and sane" fireworks sold to the retail outlets and neighborhood stands, and a "wholesale account" through which the Cloutiers bought aerial fireworks and long strings of large firecrackers that could not be sold legally to the public.
Tong said it was not illegal for Pyrodyne to sell the aerial fireworks and long strings of firecrackers to the Cloutiers to be imported to Hawai‘i since they could be resold legally to properly licensed fireworks technicians.
