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Date: Sept. 18, 2026
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
Two men pleaded guilty this week to offenses stemming from their participation in an embezzlement conspiracy involving Success Village Apartments, Inc., located in Bridgeport and Stratford.
The announcement was made by David X. Sullivan, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut; Thomas Demeo, Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in New England; P.J. O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the FBI; and Justin Page, Acting Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Success Village Apartments, Inc. (“SVA”) is a residential cooperative located in Bridgeport and Stratford. SVA comprises 96 separate buildings containing 924 residential units. Charles A. Pitcher served as the general manager of Success Village Apartments, Inc. (“SVA”) and also owned and controlled Real Estate Company of New England LLC and Pitcher Enterprises LLC. Carmine Gentile is a part owner of Umbrella Mechanical LLC (“Umbrella”), a New Jersey-registered company that provided commercial and residential plumbing, heating, and air conditioning services. In May 2022, Pitcher was appointed as the general manager of SVA for an annual fee of $250,000. In approximately June 2022, Umbrella began providing plumbing services to SVA, including work on the piping and boilers that provided heat and hot water to SVA residents.
Between approximately June 2022 and September 2024, Pitcher, Gentile, and others, including an individual identified as “Person-1” in the Criminal Information charging Pitcher, engaged in an embezzlement conspiracy through which vendors, including Umbrella, would submit fraudulent invoices and requests for payment to SVA, either for work that was not performed or at artificially inflated prices that overstated the amount of money owed by SVA. Pitcher and Person-1 agreed that, in exchange for the vendors’ receipt of work and payments from SVA, the vendors would divert between approximately 10 to 30 percent of the payments received from SVA to Pitcher and Person-1. Gentile and others prepared and caused to be prepared fraudulent invoices and requests for payment to SVA that were not the result of a competitive bidding process, contained objectively unreasonable markups for certain goods and services, contained charges for goods and services that were not rendered, contained amounts to be billed to SVA that were chosen by Pitcher and Person-1, and were otherwise fraudulently inflated, including by not accounting for the money that was remitted to Pitcher and Person-1.
In addition to the $250,000 Pitcher received annually from SVA, he also received purported “consulting fees” from SVA even though he provided no services to SVA in exchange for the fees. Pitcher typically provided a portion of these fees to Person-1.
Umbrella received approximately $2,631,769.71 in payments from SVA, more than $526,000 of which was diverted to Pitcher and Person-1. In total, Pitcher received more than $403,150 in diverted SVA funds, which were associated with over $3,664,000 in payments made by Umbrella and other vendors, and at least $232,479.35 in fraudulent “consulting fees.”
On Sept. 14, 2026, Gentile of Freehold, New Jersey, waived his right to be indicted and pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Vernon D. Oliver in Hartford to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years. As part of his plea agreement, Gentile has agreed to a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of at least $750,000 and agreed to pay restitution in the amount of at least $1,500,000. He is released on a $100,000 bond pending sentencing.
On Sept. 15, 2026, Pitcher of Trumbull pleaded guilty before Judge Oliver to the same charge, and he agreed to a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of at least $635,629.35 and agreed to pay restitution in the amount of at least $2,500,000. He is released on a $250,000 bond pending sentencing.
This ongoing investigation is being conducted by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul A. Riley.
IRS-CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. It is the only federal law enforcement agency with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code. IRS-CI has 16 field offices located across the U.S. and maintains an international presence through attaché posts abroad.