By Susannah Sudborough
masslive.com
(TNS)
A federal judge has ordered a Marlborough man to pay nearly $3 million in restitution after he defrauded the Internal Revenue Service and avoided paying restitution to victims of his previous fraud schemes, the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.
Stephen Hochberg, 78, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and obstruction of justice in January 2026, federal prosecutors said in a press release.
Hochberg was the director of corporate services at a now-defunct accounting firm called CD Katz, as well as the chief operating officer at a real estate firm called Gebsco Realty. Both Sudbury-based businesses were owned by his co-conspirator, Charles Katz.
As early as 2014, Hochberg and Katz agreed to cheat the IRS by having Hochberg receive a significant portion of his income under-the-table, federal prosecutors said. This allowed Hochberg to have tax-free income and Katz to owe less in employment taxes, federal prosecutors said.
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The pair carried out this scheme by having Katz pay for Hochberg’s children’s college tuition, as well as personal expenses that Hochberg and his ex-wife charged to corporate credit cards, federal prosecutors said. Katz also made direct payments to Hochberg’s family and provided rent-free housing to Hochberg’s ex-wife.
In total, Katz paid Hochberg at least $1,668,487 in unreported income and avoided taxes of at least $835,105, according to federal prosecutors.
In addition to Hochberg and Katz’s tax scheme, Hochberg lied to the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office about his income from Katz’s firms to obstruct the collection of the nearly $1.8 million in restitution Hochberg owed to victims of his previous fraud schemes, federal prosecutors said. Hochberg was ordered to pay the restitution in 2008 after being convicted on 17 counts of wire and securities fraud.
On Monday, a federal court judge in Boston sentenced Hochberg to two years in prison and three years of supervised release on the new charges. He was also ordered to pay nearly $2.9 million in restitution to the IRS, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and to the victims of his previous crimes.
Photo credit: CatLane/iStock
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©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit masslive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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