Carolina Journal’s Don Carrington reports today:
Two Honduran men living illegally in eastern North Carolina each will spend more than four years in federal prison for their roles in a scheme to collect millions of dollars in federal income tax refunds filed under fictitious identities, one of which was used to register to vote in Wake County.
The pair filed fraudulent tax returns in excess of $2.5 million. One of their aliases, “Eli Valle,” is listed as a registered unaffiliated voter in Wake County and was put on the voting rolls a few weeks before the Honduran illegal immigrants were arrested.
The men were arrested in March 2013, pleaded guilty in November, and were sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Raleigh. Their scheme, often referred to as stolen identity refund fraud, or SIRF, is similar to others reported by Carolina Journal.
U.S. District Court Judge Earl Britt sentenced Mardoqueo Mejia Fajardo to 51 months in prison and Jorge Ernesto Tinoco to 52 months. Both Fajardo and Tinoco are residing in the United States illegally and will be turned over to immigration officials when their prison terms are over. Britt also required each to make $1,467,117 in restitution payments to the Internal Revenue Service.
