Archive

February 13, 2018

A Las Vegas, Nevada, tax return preparer pleaded guilty to filing fraudulent tax returns. According to documents and information provided to the court, from 2009 through 2015, Ofelia Ronquillo, 62, prepared fraudulent income tax returns for clients through a business known as A.R. Financial LLC and later AJRC Tax Services, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ronquillo included false items on her clients’ tax returns, including bogus charitable contributions, capital losses, and unreimbursed employee expenses—such as meals and transportation expenses, as well as claimed inflated refunds to which her clients were not entitled. Ronquillo admitted that she caused a tax loss of more than $2.7 million. DOJ

February 6, 2018

Andre Bernard of Mount Kisco, NY was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, making false statements related to the Clean Air Act, and his participation in a multi-state scheme to defraud biodiesel buyers and U.S. taxpayers by fraudulently selling biodiesel credits and fraudulently claiming tax credits. As part of his sentence, the court also entered a money judgment in the amount of $10.5 million, the amount of proceeds of the charged criminal conduct that the defendant personally received. Two accounts already seized from the defendant worth in excess of $1.5 million will be credited against the money judgment. DOJ

January 25, 2018

A Dover, Massachusetts, insurance broker was sentenced to eight months in prison for filing false tax returns. According to the evidence presented at trial, Anthony J. May, 62, owned and operated Clients First Financial Insurance Agency LLC, through which May sold life insurance products as an insurance broker, and Advantage Life Settlements LLC, through which he served as a broker for insured individuals seeking to sell their personal life insurance policies to third party investors. May operated his businesses out of an office suite in Hingham, where he also leased office space to other independent insurance agents. May filed false 2006 through 2009 individual income tax returns that did not report more than $738,000 in income that he received from insurance commissions, brokerage fees, and office rental payments. DOJ

January 24, 2018

A Las Vegas, Nevada, business owner was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison for evading payment of employment taxes and penalties. Maria Larkin, 55, was convicted of tax evasion by a federal jury in Las Vegas in June. According to the evidence presented at trial, Larkin owned and operated Five Star Home Health Care Inc. (Five Star). Larkin was responsible for collecting and paying over income, social security, and Medicare tax withheld from her employees’ wages. From 2004 through 2009, Larkin did not pay over to the Internal Revenue Service the employment taxes she withheld. As a result, the IRS assessed trust fund recovery penalties (TFRPs) against Larkin for these years, which made her personally liable for the unpaid employment taxes. Larkin concealed her assets and income to evade paying the TFRPs and to obstruct the IRS’s efforts to collect the outstanding taxes. She lied to the IRS regarding her ability to pay, changed the name of her business, placed her business in the name of a nominee, had her employees cash checks for her, and bought a home in the name of a nominee. In total, Larkin evaded more than $1.6 million in taxes. DOJ

January 17, 2018

California announced that Jeong Kim, the owner and operator of Fashion Q and Q retail clothing stores throughout Southern California, was sentenced to two years in prison for sales tax evasion, false income tax returns, failure to pay taxes and workers’ compensation fraud. Attorney General Becerra filed a felony complaint against Kim in the Los Angeles Superior Court on June 19, 2017. Jeong Kim owned and operated more than fifty retail clothing stores in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. From 2010 through 2016, Kim failed to report more than $29 million in taxable sales to the Department of Tax and Fee Administration, more than $39 million in taxable income to the Franchise Tax Board, more than $8 million in wages to the Employment Development Department, and evaded payment of $5.6 million in sales, income and payroll tax. Kim also failed to report more than $7 million in wages to his insurance carriers and evaded payment of $353,792 in workers’ compensation insurance. CA

January 10, 2018

A Harvey, Illinois, man was sentenced to 63 months in prison for his role in a stolen identity refund fraud scheme. According to documents filed with the court, from around November 2014 to March 2015, Jonathan Herring, 34, working with at least two others, prepared and filed income tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) using stolen names and social security numbers of U.S. Air Force service members, and deposited the fraudulently obtained tax refunds into bank accounts that he controlled. In total, Herring filed approximately 225 fraudulent returns seeking approximately $845,979 in tax refunds. DOJ

December 19, 2017

A Greensboro, North Carolina, business owner pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia to filing a fraudulent tax return. According to documents and information provided to the court, David A. Crowley, 57, owned and operated Southern Logistics and Environmental LLC (SLE), a waste management and disposal company. From 2006 through 2013, SLE contracted with a television retail company to dispose of cosmetic products that were returned by its customers. Instead of destroying and disposing of the number of products as required under the contract, Crowley provided the returned cosmetics to other individuals, who then sold the products through online marketplaces. In exchange for supplying the merchandise, Crowley received a portion of the sales. Crowley did not report the proceeds he received from the returned cosmetic product sales on his income tax returns for 2006 through 2013; for 2011 he did not file an income tax return at all. For these tax years, Crowley received and did not report $3,331,341 from the returned cosmetic product sales, causing a tax loss to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of $895,654. DOJ

December 13, 2017

A Louisiana tax return preparer was sentenced to seven years in prison for filing fraudulent returns. According to documents filed with the court, Shawanda Nevers, aka Shawanda Hawkins, Shawanda Bryant, and Shawanda Johnson, 49, operated a series of businesses in the LaPlace area, including 3LJ’s Café Services & Sports Bar LLC and 3LJ’s Industrial Service Solutions LLC. Between 2011 and 2016, Nevers filed fraudulent income tax returns that included fake business losses, deductions and tax credits and sought refunds to which her clients were not entitled. Despite a federal judge permanently enjoining her from preparing federal tax returns in 2014, Nevers continued to file fraudulent returns. In addition to the term of prison imposed, U.S. District Court Judge Susie Morgan ordered Nevers to serve one year of supervised release and to pay restitution to the IRS for $6,934,764 in losses that she caused. She also was ordered to pay $128,900 to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Trust and $964 to the Social Security Administration. Nevers pleaded guilty to filing fraudulent tax returns in August. DOJ

December 8, 2017

A Tennessee temporary staffing company officer was convicted by a federal jury in Memphis of conspiring to defraud the United States, failing to pay over employment taxes, filing fraudulent employment tax returns, theft of government funds and aggravated identity theft. According to the evidence presented at trial, from 2005 through 2015, Mark Stinson and his wife, Jayton Stinson, operated a temporary staffing company in Memphis that provided services to businesses in Tennessee and elsewhere. The staffing company’s standard contract with its customers provided that the staffing company was responsible for withholding employment tax from its employees’ wages and paying over the amounts withheld to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The Stinsons failed to pay over $2.8 million in withholdings and other employment taxes due to IRS, failed to timely file employment tax returns and filed false employment tax returns. In an effort to avoid making payments to the IRS the Stinsons changed the name and structure of the company multiple times after accumulating employment tax liabilities, operating as Jayton Stinson Connex Staffing & Janitorial Service, Connexx Staffing Services LLC, Connexx Staffing Services Inc., and Complete Employment Agency. DOJ

December 8, 2017

The owner of a Houston home health agency was sentenced to 80 years in prison for his role in a $13 million Medicare fraud scheme and for filing false tax returns. Ebong Tilong, 53, of Sugarland, Texas, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon of the Southern District of Texas. According to the evidence presented at trial and Tilong’s admissions in connection with his guilty plea, from February 2006 through June 2015, Tilong and others conspired to defraud Medicare by submitting over $10 million in false and fraudulent claims for home health services to Medicare through Fiango Home Healthcare Inc. (Fiango), owned by Tilong and his wife, Marie Neba, 53, also of Sugarland, Texas. The trial evidence showed that using the money that Medicare paid for such fraudulent claims, Tilong paid illegal kickbacks to patient recruiters for referring Medicare beneficiaries to Fiango for home health services. DOJ