Trial Date Set for Frank Parlato and Chitra Selvaraj
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Mar. 24—BUFFALO — There was no plea deal on Wednesday.
But if one is not reached with federal prosecutors by Sept. 13, former Falls businessman Frank Parlato Jr., and his partner Chitra Selvaraj, will face a jury on fraud and tax obstruction charges.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Arcara set the trial date during a hearing Wednesday morning in federal court in Buffalo. At a Jan. 26 conference on the the almost seven-year old case, Arcara had warned defense attorneys that he would schedule a trial, if “ongoing plea negotiations” failed to produce a deal.
In a brief order, released late Wednesday afternoon, Arcara noted that “the parties represented to the court that plea negotiations remain ongoing”, but the judge said, at the request of prosecutors, he was scheduling a trial date “should plea negotiations break down.”
Arcara also scheduled a status conference, to update progress on the plea talks, for May 23.
The latest developments follow a lengthy delay in the proceedings, prompted first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then the unavailability of most of the defense lawyers in the case. At the Jan. 26 conference, defense attorney Paul Cambria told Arcara that the trial schedules of the defense team were now clear, allowing the 18-count superseding indictment against Parlato and Selvaraj to proceed to trial.
The federal prosecutors handling the case have regularly and repeatedly objected to the delays in the case.
Parlato and Selvaraj were most recently charged in a superseding indictment handed up in May 2018. That indictment dropped a number of claims, made by prosecutors, when the pair was originally charged in 2015.
The superseding indictment alleges a conspiracy “to defraud the United States and certain members of the public,” while adding additional claims that Parlato and Selvaraj attempted to obstruct the function of the Internal Revenue Service.
Charges of wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering, and corrupt interference with the administration of the IRS laws remain in the superseding indictment.
“The government knew they had no case (with the original indictment) and they still have no case,” Parlato said at the time of the superseding indictment. “You’ve heard of fake news, this is a fake indictment.”