Oak Lawn man who pleaded guilty to tax fraud surrenders

An Oak Lawn man who manages a cigarette store in Willowbrook and had pleaded guilty to filing a fraudulent tax return surrendered Thursday to authorities, according to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office.

In a news release, Madigan's office said that Abdullah Dahleh, 36, had been sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay more than $200,000 to the Illinois Department of Revenue. Dahleh had pleaded guilty Feb. 24 and on Thursday surrendered to authorities in DuPage County to begin serving his sentence, according to Annie Thompson, a Madigan spokeswoman.

Dahleh had been indicted in January 2016, and the state had claimed that, between 2011 and 2014, he had underreported more than $2.79 million in sales to the Department of Revenue as manager of Outlet Tobacco Inc., which operates as Tobacco Outlet Cigarettes, Cigars & More.

"The defendant defrauded the state out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for his personal profit," Madigan said in the news release. "We will continue our work to hold dishonest business owners accountable for illegally profiting at the expense of the state."

The investigation that led to Dahleh's indictment was conducted by the Department of Revenue's criminal investigations division, according to the release.