A Waterbury man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for a stolen identity tax refund scheme that federal officials said cost the U.S. Treasury $7.5 million.
Julio Lara Trinidad, 28, of Waterbury, was sentenced on Wednesday to 144 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly.
“One of the Department of Justice’s Tax Division’s highest priorities is prosecuting people who use stolen identities to steal money from the U.S. Treasury by filing false tax returns,” Daly said in a statement. “This scheme involved nearly $6.8 million dollars in fraudulent refunds – money stolen from law abiding taxpayers at an enormous cost to the Treasury. We hope that this lengthy prison term will deter other potential offenders as these prosecutions will continue to be a priority for our Office.”
According to court documents and statements made in court, the investigation was into people who obtained fraudulent U.S. Treasury tax refund checks using stolen identities, then sold the checks for less than face value or deposited them into bank accounts that had been opened using fraudulent identifying documents, then quickly withdrawn.
In 2011, Trinidad was arrested in New Jersey, accused of stealing U.S. Treasury tax refund checks from mailboxes, and pleaded guilty to a related charge in in January 2012.
Trinidad failed to appear for sentencing in May 2012 and was arrested on Nov. 23, 2013, and charged by indictment in the District of Connecticut.
While he was a fugitive from justice, Trinidad and his co-conspirators opened at least 59 bank accounts in the names of identity theft victims, deposited U.S. Treasury tax refund checks into the accounts, and then quickly withdrew the funds, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Between December 2012 and February 2013, one of the accounts was used to buy six licenses for a brand of tax preparation software, which were used to file more than 36,000 federal income tax returns, with more than $234 million in refunds, intended to be issued to Trinidad and his co-conspirators, officials said.
U.S. officials said Trinidad’s co-defendants, Jerry De Los Santos Rodriguez and Cesar Penson-Perez, admitted to working with Trinidad to open bank accounts using fraudulent identities.
In addition, between July and October 2013, Trinidad and Ramon Mena sold more than $60,000 in fraudulently-obtained U.S. Treasury checks to someone who was working with law enforcement, officials said.
On February 10, he pleaded guilty to one count of theft of public money and one count of aggravated identity theft.
