“It is painful to acknowledge that I have been dishonest to our government and to other taxpayers, but that is what I have done,’’ a tearful Tutunjian, owner of Boston Cab for four decades and the focus of a 2013 Spotlight Team series , told Woodlock. “I know I have done wrong and accept your decision with humility.’’

US District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock imposed the sentence after Tutunjian admitted he had committed federal crimes, including payroll tax evasion, failing to pay overtime to employees, hiring illegal immigrants, and helping workers get federal housing subsidies for which they didn’t qualify.

Multimillionaire Edward J. Tutunjian, once the biggest tycoon in Boston’s taxi industry, was sentenced Tuesday to serve 18 months in a Boston halfway house and to pay for his stay.


US Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office had recommended a two-year federal prison sentence, but Woodlock said he was concerned that Tutunjian’s diabetes, although under control with medication, might worsen in prison. The judge also credited dozens of letters from Tutunjian supporters who said he was a fundamentally decent man who made bad mistakes.

Instead, Woodlock sentenced him to 18 months at Coolidge House, a 120-bed “community correctional facility’’ on Huntington Avenue, and ordered him to pay for his stay. The cost to house an individual at Coolidge is $28,999 a year. Woodlock ordered Tutunjian to pay that sum or a quarter of his gross annual income — whichever is greater.

“Let there be no mistake,’’ Woodlock told Tutunjian, who lives in a handsome Colonial worth about $1.8 million at the end of a cul-de-sac in Belmont, “Coolidge House is not Belmont. It is a deprivation of one’s liberties.’’

Tutunjian immigrated from Jordan in 1966, started a cab business and ended up owning 372 taxi medallions — one in five medallions issued by the city. He also owned lucrative parking lots and garages in Fenway and vineyards in Chile. He and his wife have a net worth of more than $33 million, prosecutors said.


But the Globe series, published as Uber and other ride-sharing services began to decimate the taxi industry, found widespread exploitation at Boston Cab and other taxi companies.

Many drivers for Boston Cab reported they were pressured to pay Tutunjian’s staff petty bribes to get keys to cabs they leased for about $100 a shift. They also complained of having to make up phantom shortfalls to Tutunjian’s company, EJT Management Inc., through which he operated Boston Cab, and to buy higher-priced gas at pumps in his garage.

Two months after the series, IRS agents with guns drawn descended on Tutunjian’s garage on Kilmarnock Street in Fenway and seized boxes of financial records.

After a years-long investigation, prosecutors reached a plea deal with Tutunjian in August that focused on other workers that he directly employed — mechanics, dispatchers, and office staff. A number of these workers were illegal immigrants, prosecutors said. Tutunjian concealed the size of his company payroll from the IRS and the amount of federal taxes that he owed by paying employees partly or entirely in cash.

Tutunjian also didn’t pay required overtime to employees who worked 50 or 60 hours a week, and concealed this by requiring workers to punch in no more than 40 hours on a time clock. Employees who worked more than 40 hours were paid in cash at their regular wage.


He also arranged for a number of EJT employees to obtain federally subsidized housing in Cambridge and elsewhere, some of which had waiting lists for prospective tenants, prosecutors said. The workers didn’t qualify for the subsidies because the payroll information provided to the Department of Housing and Urban Development didn’t reflect wages that employees got in cash.

Tutunjian and EJT have paid full restitution of over $2.3 million, prosecutors said.

Assistant US Attorney Sandra Bower told Woodlock that Tutunjian was “the very epitome’’ of an immigrant who worked his way up, but he did so by systematically defrauding the government and cheating immigrant workers.

Defense attorney Andrew Good acknowledged that Tutunjian broke the law but said his client was not motivated by greed. Tutunjian, Good said, paid some employees in cash because they came from other cultures and wanted to get paid that way.

“This is not an evil person,’’ Good said. “He was misguided.’’

Woodlock acknowledged that he received dozens of letters from supporters of Tutunjian who extolled his generosity to the community and implored him not to send him to prison. “This is the most impressive collection of letters I’ve ever received,’’ said Woodlock, who was appointed to the bench in 1986.

But, he said, it would send a dangerous message if Tutunjian wasn’t sentenced to some form of incarceration and was only required to pay restitution and fines. Tutunjian will have to report to the Coolidge House at a date that has not yet been set.


Tutunjian’s company, EJT, had previously pleaded guilty to defrauding HUD and agreed to pay over $200,000 in restitution. Tutunjian’s daughter, Mary Tarpy, who now runs the firm, sat next to her father at court.

Another former EJT employee, Tutunjian’s nephew Raffi Chapian, pleaded guilty to failing to pay income taxes from 2010 to 2014 and is serving a six-month prison sentence.

Shortly before Tutunjian entered into a plea agreement with the government in August, he quietly transferred Boston Cab and 362 medallions to his wife.

A spokesman for Boston Police Commissioner William Evans, who oversees the taxi industry, said that the police hackney unit is still assessing whether Tutunjian’s wife, Nancy Tutunjian, is suitable to own the medallions and operate the taxi business. The medallions have plunged in value and can be had for as little as $130,000, as ride-hailing companies have savaged the taxi industry’s business model. Evans’s spokesman, Lieutenant Michael McCarthy, had no timeline for when hackney will make a recommendation to Evans.



But Tutunjian’s lawyer, Good, said he sees no reason why Nancy Tutunjian can’t keep the medallions.

“The question is, is Nancy a fit owner, and the answer is yes,’’ Good said. “[Tutunjian] doesn’t have any role or ownership in the business at all.’’

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.