For several months now, Carolina Journal investigative reporter Don Carrington has been investigating and writing about tax refund fraud in North Carolina. Here is his latest story.
Clinton residents Angela Christina Lainez-Flores and her daughter Karen Mejia filed fraudulent federal tax returns for refunds totaling $1.4 million from tax years 2006 through 2012, IRS special agent Bennett Strickland stated Thursday at a probable cause hearing in a Raleigh federal courtroom.
Lainez-Flores and Mejia had been charged with conspiracy to defraud the federal government by filing fraudulent income tax returns. The scheme involved fabricated identities, phony W-2 earnings statements, and the listing of dependents who do not exist. If convicted of all charges, the maximum penalty would be imprisonment for 10 years. Each woman waived her right to a detention hearing and will remain in custody until trial.
Don Carrington has been looking into unusual tax refund activity in Durham.
As previously reported by CJ, fraudsters used the Sherron Road address of a Durham homeowner as a drop box for revenue agencies to send their refund checks.
Beginning March 1, the homeowner intercepted several pieces of correspondence and checks addressed to others, including a $1,651 check from the State of Maryland to Sherry D. Arozarena and a $1,746 check also from Maryland to Jessica B. Fonseca, and a $4,108 check Jody A. Freed from the IRS.
The homeowner also received a letter from the N.C. Department of Revenue addressed to a Jody Freed. It said the department could not process Freed’s return and that it must be resubmitted with W-2 and 1099 forms as well as a copy of Freed’s IRS tax return form.
The homeowner saw strange people checking his mailbox and others on the street. Two of his neighbors had also received checks and correspondence addressed to persons who did not live there. The homeowners turned over all checks and correspondence to federal officials.
But in April the North Carolina Department of Revenue issued a $440 state income tax refund to a Jorge Diaz Gonzalez and mailed it to the same Sherron Road home even though Gonzales did not live at that address and is likely using a fictitious name.
The Gonzalez check was issued weeks after CJ informed senior officials in the department that the Sherron Road address was being used in attempts to collect fraudulent tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service and other state revenue agencies.
