Archive

April 7, 2016

A Staten Island, New York, tax return preparer and business owner was sentenced to prison for preparing false federal income tax returns. Alabi Gbangbala aka Babatunde Alabi Babaia, 52, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon to serve 18 months in prison, followed by one year of supervised release, and ordered to pay $178,209 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). According to court...

April 5, 2016

A former resident of Portland, Oregon was sentenced to 37 months in prison for her role in a tax refund fraud scheme. Tataneisha White, 43, admitted to conspiring with multiple individuals, including Jasmine Mason, Shawntina Ware and Brandon Leath, all of Portland, to file more than 227 false income tax returns claiming more than $1 million in fraudulent refunds. The false information on the tax returns included...

April 4, 2016

The Department of Justice announced a federal indictment charging Diane L. Kroupa, 60, and her husband, Robert E. Fackler, 62, with conspiring with each other to evade assessment of taxes. Each defendant is charged with conspiracy, tax evasion, making and subscribing false tax returns and obstruction of an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit. According to the indictment and documents filed in court, between 2004...

April 1, 2016

A Montgomery County, Alabama resident pleaded guilty today to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. According to court documents, James Vernon Battle, 30, used stolen personal identification information to prepare and file at least 335 false federal income tax returns for tax years 2013 and 2014 that fraudulently claimed more than $400,000 in tax refunds. Battle obtained the stolen...

March 24, 2016

A Montgomery County, Alabama, resident pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. According to court documents, between January 2013 and August 2015, Wendy Huff, worked at two loan companies in Montgomery, Alabama, and had access to the means of identification of customers, including their names, social security numbers and dates of birth. Huff agreed to...

March 24, 2016

Two residents of Kenner, Louisiana, pleaded guilty before Federal District Court Judge Lance M. Africk of the Eastern District of Louisiana for crimes related to the operation of their check cashing business, VJ Discount Inc. According to publicly filed documents, defendants Susantha Wijetunge and Manula Wijetunge owned VJ Discount Inc., a Louisiana corporation that operated a convenience store and check cashing...

March 22, 2016

New York announced a $1.1 million dollar settlement of a whistleblower case alleging that real estate developer Asher Roshanzamir wrongfully deferred payment of New York state and New York City income taxes. Federal law allows a seller of real property to defer paying income taxes on certain capital gains when he exchanges it for ‘like-kind’ real property, under certain conditions. An investigation by the Attorney...

March 21, 2016

A Charlotte, North Carolina, area resident was sentenced to 41 months in prison for his involvement in a fraudulent tax return scheme. According to court documents and statements in court, in early 2011, Daniel Heggins, 44, and Joan Clark operated Guarantor Manufactures Inc. (GMI), a business that purported to help individuals who were in debt. Heggins and his co-conspirators, including Clark, prepared and filed...

March 16, 2016

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has permanently barred Stacy John Sanchez of Orange County, California, from preparing federal tax returns for others. According to the complaint, Sanchez owned and operated 12 Liberty Tax Service franchise locations, primarily in the Los Angeles and Las Vegas areas. At these locations, Sanchez and his employees prepared federal income tax returns that,...