Jose Perez, 52, of Philadelphia, PA was sentenced today after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States announced Acting United States Attorney Louis D. Lappen. Perez was sentenced to 51 months’ imprisonment and ordered to pay $814,981 in restitution.
Perez admitted that he participated in a scheme that defrauded the United States by filing false income tax returns using stolen identities of Puerto Rico residents. Perez collected the tax refund checks from addresses he and others controlled and then he gave the checks to another member of the scheme to be cashed. Between April 2009 and June 2009, Perez and others in the scheme cashed over $800,000 of fraudulently obtained United States Treasury tax refund checks.
The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney David Ignall.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
