Roanoke, VIRGINIA - A member of a tax fraud conspiracy, responsible for the preparation and filing of dozens of false returns, was sentenced today in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Roanoke, Acting United States Attorney Rick A. Mountcastle announced today.
Agwel Fayette, 32, of Roanoke, Va., previously pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit theft of government money and related offenses against the United States and one count of theft of government money, both as a principal and aider and abettor. Today in District Court, Fayette was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 33 months, with a term of supervised release. The Court also ordered Fayette to pay $117,682 in restitution to the Department of the Treasury.
According to evidence presented at previous hearings by Assistant United States Attorney C. Patrick Hogeboom III and Special Assistant United States Attorney Kari Munro, Fayette conspired with her husband, Darold Daniel, and a tax preparer in Florida, Audrey Obin, to file false tax returns claiming refunds in names of various victims. Fayette obtained personal identifiers for these victims in many instances by posing as a representative from an employment agency looking for workers. Obin has already been convicted and sentenced for his decision to prepare many of these fraudulent returns through his Miami-based business, Vision Tax Services, using the identifiers he received from Fayette and Daniel.
In all, Fayette and her co-conspirators filed more than 58 fraudulent returns with the Department of the Treasury, seeking refunds in excess of $316,000. The Internal Revenue Service successfully interceded to stop a majority of these refunds from being processed.
The investigation of the case was conducted by the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Postal Inspection Service. Assistant United States Attorney C. Patrick Hogeboom III and Special Assistant United States Attorney Kari Munro prosecuted the case against Fayette on behalf of the United States.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
