PURE GOLD VALLEY

Montgomery woman who filed 102 false tax returns sentenced to almost 6 years in prison

A judge sentenced a woman to almost six years in prison and ordered her to pay more than $100,000 in restitution for filing false tax returns, according to information released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Jacqueline Slaton pleaded guilty and admitted to filing 102 false federal and state tax returns requesting $154,904 between December 2011 and March 2012. She had the tax refunds go on prepaid debit cards, which were mailed to different addresses on a U.S. postal carrier?s route and, for a fee, a postal employee agreed to collect those prepaid cards.

?Identity theft cannot and will not be tolerated,? said George Beck, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama.

He said people who commit identify theft will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Slaton was in the process of filing false tax returns using stolen identities when agents with the Internal Revenue Service executed a search warrant earlier this year and ended her operation, according to court documents. She had access to hundreds of stolen identities at the time.

?Be assured that the IRS has made an unwavering commitment to the pursuit of identity theft,? Richard Weber, chief of the IRS Criminal Investigation division said in the statement sent out by the Justice Department.

He said identity theft is not a victimless crime.

?Identity theft is a contemptible crime that victimizes honest taxpayers and causes immense hardship,? Weber said.

Kathryn Keneally, assistant U.S. attorney general for the Justice Department?s Tax Division, said the ?lengthy prison sentences handed down by this court, in this and other cases, show that criminals will pay a high price for committing stolen identity refund fraud.?

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This post was written by: Franklin Manuel

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