Press Releases
WOMAN SENTENCED FOR PREPARING FRAUDULENT TAX RETURNS FOR TAXPAYERS
June 25, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ELAINE MITCHELL - 56, of Amite, Louisiana, was sentenced today by Chief U. S. District Judge Helen Berrigan to five (5) months incarceration, five (5) months home detention, three (3) years supervised release and a $100 special assessment for making false claims against the government, announced U. S. Attorney Jim Letten. Judge Berrigan also ordered the defendant to pay restitution in the amount of $77,092.00.
According to the court documents, the IRS received numerous income tax returns from a small geographic area in the Eastern District of Louisiana. The common pattern for all of the questionable returns in the scheme was the reported false income was derived from “household wages.” Attached to all of the returns was a hand-written document listing the type of work performed, the employers purportedly worked for and the amount of “household wages” earned by the individuals submitting the returns.
Special Agents of the IRS interviewed the individuals who had submitted the suspicious returns and determined that MITCHELL had prepared the returns for the individuals. It was determined that MITCHELL would provide the taxpayers with the self-employment letters which stated that the individual was employed by people who paid them an amount of money for performing household jobs and duties, when in truth, as the defendant well knew, the taxpayers had performed no work during the taxable year.
The total of the false claims against the government totaled $117, 829.00, of which the government paid $77,092.00 before the scheme was discovered.
The case was investigated by the Special Agents of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations. The prosecution was handled by Assistant United States Attorney G. Dall Kammer.
