Unlicensed Cigarette Manufacturer Sentenced to Prison and Ordered to pay $3.5 Million

Posted 08/13/2018

On Friday, August 10, 2018, Jeffrey Lazare was sentenced to one year and a day in prison and was order to pay $3.5 million after having pled guilty to shipping, selling, and distributing cigarettes without maintaining the required records.  Lazare's failure to maintain required records was part of an effort to avoid paying the federal excise tax (FET) on the cigarettes he manufactured and distributed.  His 38 separate sales of 10,000 or more cigarettes were subject to an FET of at least $247,623.60 that he did not pay.