Former Irondequoit police chief to enter plea in federal court
Former Irondequoit Police Chief Alan Laird is scheduled for a plea hearing in federal court on Sept. 12, court records show.
The records do not specify the crime or crimes Laird is expected to plead guilty to, but his business partner in a local security company recently admitted in federal court to business-related tax crimes.
In that plea Steven Rosenbaum admitted that he and his business partner defrauded the Internal Revenue Service out of hundreds of thousands of dollars through the security company, Swoop 1.
Laird was not identified by name in Rosenbaum's plea, but the business partner was referred to as "A.L."
Laird surprisingly retired from the chief's job in November, at the time the investigation by the IRS into tax fraud allegations was beginning to heat up.
In his plea, Rosenbaum said that:
From 2016 through 2021 he and his partner failed to report on corporate income tax forms, gross receipts that totaled nearly $260,000.
During those same years the two took checks from clients and cashed them at a check cashing business and did not report the amount on taxes. Those gross company receipts totaled more than $5.3 million.
He and his partner used the cash from the cash checking business partly to pay employees. They paid about $2.7 million to workers and split about $2.5 million between themselves.
Federal prosecutors declined after Rosenbaum's plea to say whether Laird was the business partner alleged to have also committed tax crimes.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Alan Laird, former Irondequoit chief, to enter plea in federal court
