Owner of Pennsylvania’s biggest house asking for home confinement in region’s largest-ever tax fraud; feds say he deserves prison

Joe Nocito, rich owner of the biggest private house in the state, says he’s too old and “infirm” to go to prison for pulling the largest tax fraud in the history of Western Pennsylvania and wants to serve probation on home confinement in another of his houses.

Federal prosecutors say: No way.

Nocito, 81, orchestrated the “most staggering tax fraud” ever in this region, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Melucci in court papers filed Thursday, ahead of sentencing next month in U.S. District Court.

His schemes cost the government $93 million. But now, Melucci asked, he wants to duck prison and be sentenced to live in one of his own houses?

A sentence like that, Melucci said, “belittles” federal sentencing factors and ignores the magnitude of his crimes.

Nocito, who owns Automated Health Systems in McCandless and some 114 other businesses, pleaded guilty in November to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. in building his enormous $30 million Bell Acres house — he calls it Villa Noci — by ripping off taxpayers.

He admitted that between 2006 and 2012, he conspired to write off millions of dollars as business expenses against his various companies in the construction of the 51,000-square-foot edifice that neighbors mockingingly call “The Castle” and which Melucci noted is bigger than Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Nocito also admitted that he fraudulently expensed millions for personal expenditures, including his fleet of high-end cars, tuition for fancy private schools for his grandchildren, big homes for his children, ritzy artwork, country club memberships and the like.

Melucci said Nocito directed a “complex scheme to cheat and deceive the IRS” out of an estimated $93 million in personal and expense income.

The prosecutor said he should serve the prison term called for in sentencing guidelines: 36 to 47 months.

In arguing for home confinement, Nocito and his lawyers said that he’s fat, he needs a knee replacement and he’s been treated previously for skin cancer, so he’s not able to “acclimate to prison.” He asked that he be allowed to serve his term on electronic monitoring at his other house in Hampton.

Meluccu said his health problems are not abnormal for someone his age and they are no reason for avoiding the lockup. He said he’ll present evidence from the Bureau of Prisons that it is well-equipped to handle age-related health conditions.

He also said other judges in this district and elsewhere have denied similar requests for downward departures based on health and age issues.

In 2018, for example, Judge Mark Hornak gave another elderly crook, Jack Hogan, a decade in prison despite his age of 78 years. Hogan orchestrated the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of Western Pennsylvania. Melucci was the prosecutor in that one, too, and noted that Hogan also argued for leniency based on his age and health problems. Hornak was unmoved.

Melucci said the judge in Nocito’s case, Joy Flowers Conti, should take the same approach.

“He is not non-ambulatory, wheelchair bound or bedridden,” he said. “He is certainly not an invalid.”

Nocito also argued that he provides financial support for his children and grandchildren. But Melucci said that contention is “absurd.” Nocito’s children are all adults, have plenty of money and live in big, fancy houses like he does. Nocito has seven grandchildren between his children, Joe Jr. and Gina Marie. Joe Jr., who himself was prosecuted federally for a fraud scheme and went to prison, lives in a house he bought in Sewickley for $2.7 million. Gina bought her house in Sewickley Heights for $1.6 million, Melucci said.

Nocito is not the primary caretaker or financial supporter for either child or their own offspring, the government said.

Nocito also wants leniency based on his charitable donations. He gives millions to such organizations as the Catholic church and Robert Morris University. But Melucci said that doesn’t matter when it comes to sentencing.

“Individuals blessed with vast wealth are expected to benefit the less fortunate,” he said. “No defendant should be able to buy his or her way out of just punishment.”

Nocito is set to be sentenced Sept. 14.

The case has been in the federal pipeline for more than a decade. The IRS first began looking at him in 2012 and uncovered a long-running tax fraud involving nearly every aspect of Nocito’s mammoth mansion that Nocito carried out with the help of his bookkeeper, Ann Harris, and his chief financial officer, Dennis Sundo.

The installation of his pool is just one example. In 2008, Nocito had a check drawn on another of his companies, Jonolley Properties, made payable to Aqua Pool for the $237,000 pool at Villa Noci. He then directed that the payment be classified as “consulting” on the Jonolley books and deducted as a business expense on the Jonolley corporate tax return for 2008.

Nocito took similar actions on architectural work, his tennis court, his basketball court, his kitchen, his statues and almost everything else at The Castle.