Los Angeles, California – LAWFUEL – The Law Newswire – A San Bernardino, California woman was sentenced today in United States District Court in Los Angeles to spend 24 months in federal prison for filing false tax returns, in the names of unknowing individuals, with the Internal Revenue Service.
In addition to spending 2 years in prison for filing false tax returns, United States District Judge Dean D. Pregerson further ordered Bonita Garcia Deleon, of San Bernardino, California, to spend 3 years on supervised release after serving her prison sentence.
According to her plea agreement filed in December 2006, Deleon admitted to filing at least 36 false income tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service in the names of persons without their knowledge. Further Deleon admitted that she knew that, at the time she filed the returns claiming the tax refunds, the returns were false. Specifically, the tax returns prepared and filed by Deleon falsely claimed income tax refunds based upon fictitious information she included on the returns, including false addresses, salary and wage amounts, fake dependents, and false earned income tax credits. Additionally, Deleon prepared the returns including false signatures for the purported taxpayers. In total, Deleon claimed at least $81,873 in income tax refunds to which she was not entitled to receive from the Internal Revenue Service.
At the conclusion of this afternoon’s hearing, Judge Pregerson ordered Deleon to begin serving her prison sentence on September 4, 2007.
The investigation of Deleon was conducted by IRS – Criminal Investigation in Los Angeles.
