Six Jackson residents schemed to steal Social Security numbers and birth dates of current and former inmates at the state prison in Rankin County to file false tax returns and pocket thousands of dollars in refunds, federal prosecutors say.
Charged in a 42-count indictment with conspiracy to commit identity theft and tax fraud over a four-year period are Ladonna Cooper, 30; Marietta Harris, 37; Tony Jones, 30; Nikki Thomas, 37; S’Ade Tyler, 27; and Shekeila Jones, 26.
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All but Jones were arrested following their indictment filed Jan 24 at U.S. District Court in Jackson and are free on $10,000 bond each, said Sheila Wilbanks, secretary to U.S. Attorney Gregory Davis. Those five were arraigned Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Keith Ball. They are set for trial April 8 before U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate.
Jones was arrested Thursday, Wilbanks said.
According to the indictment, the defendants “were involved in a conspiracy to illegally obtain the names and Social Security numbers of others which they then used to file fraudulent federal tax returns for the purpose of obtaining fraudulent refunds,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release.
“Identity theft is a serious crime that victimizes honest taxpayers and causes immense hardship,” Damon Rowe, acting special agent in charge of the Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation, said in the release.
The investigation “should serve as a warning that we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners and the U.S. attorney’s office to hold accountable those individuals who undermine our income tax system by filing false claims for refunds,” Rowe said in the release.
According to the indictment, Cooper was working at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in January 2009 and had access to its computer system. That prison houses mostly female inmates.
The computer system contained not just Social Security numbers and dates of birth for current and former prisoners there, but the same information for current and former visitors, the indictment said.
The six used that information, plus similar information gleaned from medical records, to file fictitious federal income tax returns so they could receive fraudulent tax refunds, the indictment alleges. The six agreed the funds would be electronically deposited in accounts at local banks, including BankPlus, Wachovia, Bank of America and Regions, prosecutors say.
The amounts varied, but some were extremely similar. For example, three deposits on the same day in July 2010 at BankPlus were for $1,495, $1,496 and $1,497, the indictment says. The highest amount deposited appeared to be $1,539, in February 2011 at Bank of America, according to the indictment.
The total amount of deposited tax return money listed in the indictment is about $32,000, but that number could grow because the investigation is ongoing, federal officials say.
Federal officials say they can’t divulge how they became aware of the fraud or whether the victims know their identities were stolen. They said they can’t divulge if Cooper was the only one of those indicted who worked at the prison or if Cooper is still employed there.
Federal officials also say they can’t divulge whether the fraudulently obtained tax refunds were electronically deposited into the defendants’ existing accounts or if the defendants created new accounts just for that money.
In the indictment, prosecutors ask for the forfeiture and seizure of any property derived from proceeds traced to the fraudulently obtained tax refunds.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigations with assistance from the Mississippi attorney general’s office, the Mississippi Department of Corrections and the Mississippi Department of Revenue.
