Yesterday, (May 23) three men pled guilty to tax fraud charges in federal district court. The men participated in a conspiracy that filed 123 false federal tax returns, netting more than $1.6 million in fraudulent refunds.
Rahman Hill, 40, of Mableton, GA, Keith Lamone Richard, 40, of Decatur, GA and Peter Raymond Williams, 42, of Passaic, NJ along with two other accomplices gathered personal information from people in homeless shelters, jails, and other locations, and used it to file income tax returns with exaggerated claims for refunds.
“These defendants exploited homeless people and jail inmates to steal money from the government,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates. “In already tight budget times, we will fight even more aggressively to protect the tax money that our hard-working citizens have legitimately paid.”
According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges and other information presented in court, the conspirators filed 123 returns between December 2005 and March 2007. The fourth charged defendant, Kelcey Pierre Miller, also known as “Bashir” or “Shake,” 36, of Atlanta, GA, pleaded guilty earlier this month to the conspiracy charge and a charge of aggravated identity theft. The fifth defendant, Jabbarivan Pender or “James Earl Pender,” 40, of Newark, NJ, is still in federal custody on other pending charges in New Jersey. The defendants were indicted on the charges on July 27, 2010.
The charge of conspiring to file false claims for payment against the United States carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a fine of $250,000.
Miller is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday, July 7, 2011. Hill, Richard and Williams are scheduled to be sentenced on July 23, 2011.
“Identity theft is a contemptible modern-day scourge. Filing fraudulent tax returns in the names of other individuals may result in significant harm to those individuals whose identities were stolen, as well as causing huge monetary losses to the U.S. Treasury,” states IRS-Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Reginael McDaniel. “IRS Criminal Investigation has made investigating refund fraud and identity theft a top priority.”
Source: US Government
