HAMMOND — A federal judge sentenced a former Gary woman to prison for taking part in a fraudulent tax preparation scheme.
Chief U.S. District Court Jon E. DeJulio imposed a 28-month sentence Tuesday on 36-year-old Yvonna A. Lee who pleaded guilty in March 2020 to the felony counts of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The judge also ordered her to pay the Internal Revenue Service $405,867 in restitution.
A federal grand jury indicted Lee, Tanisha L. Bledsoe, 48, of Chicago Heights, and Latonya R. Foxx, 35, of Indianapolis, in 2018 on 15 counts of fraud and identify theft.
The government alleged the defendants filed more than 500 illicit federal income tax returns between 2014 and 2017.
The government alleged the trio recruited hundreds of taxpayers in Indiana and Illinois as clients to their tax preparation business.
The defendants extracted their clients personal identifying information to generate tax returns they sent the IRS with false income information and misapplied education credits to illegally lower their clients taxes.
People are also reading…
…
