NAUGATUCK – A local man wanted desperately to get his 2006 Harley Davidson motorcycle registered but knew that some outstanding tax bills stood in his way. So, he took matters into his own hands.
Rather than trying to pay his bills, which is required to register a car, the man made a fake rubber stamp in an attempt to replicate the official stamp from the Naugatuck tax office. He stamped paperwork which would have proven he had paid his taxes in full. He also added the initials of borough Tax Collector Jim Goggin.
The scam might have worked if not for an alert employee at the Department of Motor Vehicles who noticed the tax stamp looked a little odd.
“She asked it we changed our stamp because it was far from the one we use,” Goggin explained.
The borough's stamp has the words "Naugatuck Motor Vehicle Tax Paid 088" written on four flat lines. The man's fake stamp had "Motor Vehicle Tax Paid" written on the perimeter of a circle with the number 088 - Naugatuck's tax code - in the middle.
When notified of the situation, Naugatuck officials pulled the man’s name -- 32-year-old Charles Baldino -- and noticed he had $1,158 in back taxes owed to the borough. They have submitted information to the Naugatuck Police Department’s detective bureau, which is investigating Baldino's actions.
Asked whether he’d seen anything like this before, Goggin laughed. “This is definitely a first,” he said.
