Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that JONATHAN WALLY, a Police Officer with the New York City Police Department (“NYPD") at the time of his offenses, was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court to five years of probation for tax fraud and identity theft offenses related to his preparation and filing of false and fraudulent U.S. individual income tax returns (“tax returns"). WALLY’s probation will include six months of intermediate confinement and one year of electronic monitoring to run concurrent to confinement. WALLY pled guilty in August 2013, and was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield.
According to court filings and statements made in court:
From 2003 until his arrest in this case in April 2013, WALLY was employed by the NYPD as a Police Officer assigned to the 34th precinct located in the Washington Heights/Inwood section of Manhattan. Since at least 2008, he also served as a tax preparer registered with the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS"). Although the NYPD requires its Police Officers to obtain written authorization to engage in off-duty employment, WALLY never sought or obtained such authorization to work as a tax preparer.
From 2010 through April 2012, WALLY defrauded the IRS by causing it to issue tax refunds to other individuals based on fraudulent and false tax returns he prepared and filed on behalf of those taxpayers. Among other things, the tax returns claimed deductions for false dependents. During that time period and continuing through January 2013, WALLY further defrauded the IRS by preparing and filing fraudulent and false tax returns on his own behalf that claimed false dependents and failed to declare certain income. In connection with this fraudulent tax return scheme, WALLY obtained personal identifying information and Social Security cards of children and declared those children as dependents on the false and fraudulent tax returns he prepared and filed on behalf of others and himself.
As a result of the false and fraudulent tax returns WALLY prepared and filed on behalf of other individual taxpayers, the IRS paid these taxpayers at least $146,818 in fraudulent tax refunds. The false and fraudulent tax returns prepared and filed by WALLY on his own behalf and his failure to declare the income he earned as a tax preparer caused the IRS to pay him at least $48,990 in fraudulent tax refunds. In total, WALLY’s tax scheme defrauded the IRS in the amount of $195,808.
In addition to probation and intermediate confinement, Judge Schofield ordered WALLY, 34, of Bronx, New York, to pay a $400 special assessment fee. WALLY was also ordered to pay restitution of, and agreed to forfeit to the IRS, the amount of $195,808.
Mr. Bharara praised the investigative work of the IRS, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, and the Internal Affairs Bureau of the NYPD.
This prosecution is being handled by the Office’s Public Corruption Unit. Assistant United States Attorney Carrie H. Cohen is in charge of the prosecution.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
