Filed Dozens of Fraudulent Tax Returns Seeking Over $160,000 in Refunds
A woman who filed 36 fraudulent tax returns, some using the identities of other people, over a two-year period and stole the subsequent refunds was sentenced today to over a year in federal prison.
Toniece King, age 37, from Evanston, Illinois, received the prison term after a March 16, 2020 guilty plea to one count of theft of government property and one count of false claim for refund of taxes.
Information disclosed at sentencing showed that, King used her own name and the names and social security numbers of others to file fraudulent tax returns from January 2015 through January 2017. In total, she filed 36 fraudulent returns, claiming over $160,000 in refunds. Over $65,000 of the fraudulently claimed refunds was paid out. King received some of these refunds on prepaid debit cards that were found in her possession in March 2016.
King was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams. King was sentenced to fourteen months’ imprisonment. She was ordered to make $65,481 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. She must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
King was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a date yet to be set.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Anthony Morfitt and investigated by the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigations and the Cedar County Sheriff’s Office.
Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
The case file number is 19-CR-118.
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Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
