Procida Tile owner pleads not guilty to sales tax theft

The owner of a Long Island tile company pleaded not guilty Thursday afternoon in a Suffolk courtroom to charges he stole more than $1.1 million in sales tax from the state and the county.

Frank Procida, 48, of Bay Shore, founder of Procida Tile Importers, surrendered Thursday morning to detectives from the Suffolk district attorney's office, prosecutors said.

He is charged with 57 counts, including first-degree grand larceny, filing false documents and failing to file tax returns. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison.

"He collected the sales tax and didn't send it up to the state," said Assistant District Attorney Christopher Nicolino, deputy bureau chief of economic crimes. "This is money that Suffolk County residents had to make up."

About half of the state sales tax goes to the county.

"This involved many corporations with many shareholders and players other than Frank Procida," said his Uniondale attorney, Joel Weiss. "We're in discussions with the government with a view toward a possible resolution of the matter."

The indictment against Procida also includes his 12 corporations.

Attorney James Druker of Garden City, who represents the corporations, said there is disagreement about how much Procida and his corporations failed to pay the state in sales taxes: "The big area of disagreement is regarding the numbers, and we've brought on board a forensic accountant."

The investigation focused on the company's Patchogue, Coram, Deer Park and Lindenhurst stores. The Patchogue location is now closed. Procida also has a Freeport store, which is not part of the investigation.

Procida, who was handcuffed in court in Riverhead, was released without bail. Assistant District Attorney Joseph T. Conley III said prosecutors agreed to his release partly because they have frozen most of Procida's assets - about $1.7 million.

A charge of first-degree grand larceny is unique, Conley said, because it requires stealing more than $1 million.

Each store has a different corporation that changed every six months to a year, so taxes never caught up, Nicolino said.

But the flipping of corporations caught the attention of investigators, he said.

The yearlong investigation, with help from the state Department of Taxation and Finance, spans 2003 to February 2009, prosecutors said.

Procida's next court appearance is Dec. 2.

With Joseph Mallia