Two Delaware residents who owned a tax preparation business were sentenced to prison time in connection with the filing of taxes from New Jersey prison inmates.
U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Paul J. Fishman and Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department’s Tax Division announced that Kamal J. James, a/k/a “Bro Messiah Aziz El,” 34, of Seaford, and Crystal G. Hawkins, a/k/a “Sis. Crystal Gabri-El,” 39, of Laurel were sentenced to 96 and 48 months in prison, respectively.
They were charged with one count of conspiracy, 16 counts of making false claims and three counts of mail fraud. They were convicted on all counts following a one-week trial in Trenton, NJ.
According to Attorney’s office and the evidence at trial
James and Hawkins operated Release Refunds, a tax preparation business – previously based in Brick, NJ and in Seaford. They solicited current and former New Jersey prison inmates as clients and then filed fraudulent tax returns on their behalf. The company is no longer in business.
James and Hawkins sent Release Refunds “promotional” flyers to inmates at various New Jersey prisons and halfway houses offering tax return preparation services.
The pair asked inmates interested in Release Refunds’ services to provide basic identification information and to sign income tax returns and other IRS documents, but not to include any information about their income or withholdings.
James and Hawkins then filled in the missing income information on the return forms, fabricating the inmates’ earnings to trigger fraudulent and inflated refunds.
During the investigation, an undercover IRS-Criminal Investigation agent posing as an inmate in a New Jersey prison submitted a completed Release Refunds form and sent it to James and Hawkins.
They then sent the “inmate” blank income tax forms and other IRS documents and instructions to sign the documents. James and Hawkins did not request any financial information from the undercover agent before preparing three fraudulent tax returns – including false income information that James and Hawkins provided – to be filed on behalf of the agent for tax years 2010 through 2012.
The fraudulent returns resulted in several thousand dollars in refunds and a $1,485 fee for the defendants.
Both were sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $570,897.
