Former Pepperell Man Who Fled to Canada on Snowmobile Pleads Guilty to Bankruptcy Fraud
BOSTON – A former Pepperell man pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Worcester in connection with concealing $3–$4 million in his bankruptcy filings.
Cyril Gordon Lunn, 68, pleaded guilty today to concealing assets from his bankruptcy creditors and making a false statement under the penalty of perjury in one of his bankruptcy schedules. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman scheduled sentencing for May 3, 2017.
From 1985 until 2001, Lunn was the owner of CY Realty Corporation, a construction and land development business in Pepperell. 1998 to September 2001, Lunn transferred a variety of assets belonging to CY Realty and himself, including $3-$4 million in cash, from the United States to Canada, where he deposited some or all of the funds in safe deposit boxes. In the fall of 2001, Lunn filed for bankruptcy for CY Realty and himself; however, he failed to disclose in either bankruptcy case the asset transfers, including the millions in cash. Lunn’s actions were discovered after he testified about the asset transfers during a 2004 Canadian civil lawsuit. In March 2005, Lunn rented a snowmobile in Maine and fled across the border into Canada where he remained a fugitive until he was extradited from Canada in 2016.
Lunn also pleaded guilty to making a false statement in one of his bankruptcy filings by falsely stating that he had closed all safe deposit boxes by September 2001, when in fact, he had failed to disclose a safe deposit box that he had opened at the Granite Bank in New Hampshire, and which he continued to access after the bankruptcy filing.
The charging statutes provide for a sentence of no greater than five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Acting United States Attorney William D. Weinreb and Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division, made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark J. Balthazard of Weinreb’s Economic Crimes Unit is prosecuting the case.
