ATLANTA - Four defendants have been sentenced to federal prison for running a tax fraud scheme that involved using an ancestry/genealogy website to find personal information of victims and then file phony tax returns in their names.
“Identity thieves continue to find innovative ways to exploit the many beneficial aspects of the Internet to harvest information and steal money," said U.S. Attorney John A. Horn. “These defendants were not seeking ancestors. Instead, they collected the Social Security Numbers of deceased people and filed over $1 million in bogus tax returns."
“Sophisticated stolen identity refund fraud schemes have the potential to harm many taxpayers and put large amounts of public money at risk," said Veronica Hyman-Pillot, Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation. “Shawuana Sanders and her co-conspirators demonstrated a blatant disregard of the integrity of the United States tax system and caused immeasurable hardship to innocent victims. We, along with the United States Attorney's Office, continue to do our part in protecting the sanctity and integrity of the tax system and those individuals whose identities were stolen, as well as recovering any monetary loss against the U.S. Treasury."
According to U.S. Attorney Horn, the charges and other information presented in court: Four defendants conspired together in a million-dollar tax fraud and identity theft scheme. Defendant Shawuana Sanders orchestrated the scheme. She and defendant Monica Person obtained personal identity information, primarily from an ancestry/genealogy website, but also from other sources. They then filed fraudulent tax returns with the IRS using the names and Social Security numbers found on the website. Many of the victims were deceased at the time of filing.
The fraudulent tax returns claimed false income amounts and dependent information, including dependents whose names were also taken from the ancestry/genealogy website. Sanders and Person had the tax refund checks mailed to various addresses associated with them. Sanders filed over $1.1 million in fraudulent tax returns, and Person filed over $139,000 in fraudulent tax returns, as part of the scheme.
Defendant Tania Zelada worked as a supervisory teller at a bank in Columbus, Georgia. At Sanders’ direction, Zelada cashed 127 fraudulent checks from the scheme worth over $463,000. Zelada received several hundred dollars for each check she cashed.
Sanders’s ex-husband, Jason Sanders, was also involved in the scheme. He mailed some of the fraudulent returns to the IRS, and on occasion shuttled cash and checks between Sanders and Zelada. In addition, before the ancestry/genealogy website scheme, while working as a correctional officer at a jail in Muscogee County, Jason Sanders stole the personal information of inmates and gave it to Shawuana Sanders for her to use in filing fraudulent tax returns in 2008.
United States District Judge Timothy C. Batten, Sr. sentenced the defendants as follows:
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On May 12, 2016, Shawuana N. Sanders, 40, of Kennesaw, Georgia, was sentenced to five years, two months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $845,809.76 in restitution.Shawuana Sanders was convicted of conspiracy and aggravated identity in February 2016 after pleading guilty.
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On May 12, 2016, Monica L. Person, 37, of Columbus, Georgia, was sentenced to two years, three months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $87,112.65 in restitution.Person was convicted of conspiracy and aggravated identity theft in January 2016 after pleading guilty.
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On April 14, 2016, Tania M. Zelada, 26, of Fortson, Georgia, was sentenced to one year, three months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $463,113.02 in restitution.Zelada was convicted of conspiracy in August 2015 after pleading guilty.
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On March 28, 2016, Jason L. Sanders, 33, of Columbus, Georgia, was sentenced to one year, six months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $845,809.76 in restitution.Jason Sanders was convicted of conspiracy in August 2015 after pleading guilty.
This case was investigated by Special Agents of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation.
Assistant United States Attorney Stephen H. McClain prosecuted the case.
For further information please contact the U.S. Attorney’s Public Affairs Office at USAGAN.PressEmails@usdoj.gov or (404) 581-6016. The Internet address for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is http://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
