The former owner of a San Diego tax-preparation business was sentenced in federal court Friday to seven years in prison for filing more than 3,500 false returns and stealing people’s identities in order to finagle more than $7 million in illicit refunds.
As detailed in a plea agreement, Melissa Ann Vega, 44, conspired with accomplices from at least December 2009 through April of last year to submit thousands of false income tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service while running L&T Works out of a Miramar Road office.
In addition to sending the San Diego resident to prison, U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Miller ordered her to forfeit several guns — including a sawed-off shotgun and a 9 mm handgun — seized from her home during a search in the spring of 2014. Miller also required her to pay about $7.17 million in restitution to the IRS.
Furthermore, Vega, a previously convicted felon, agreed to never again prepare or file federal income tax returns for anyone other than herself.
To facilitate her scheme, Vega falsified her customers’ returns without their knowledge, claiming thousands of dollars in false education expenses and tax credits for which they were not qualified, according to prosecutors.
Vega told her co-conspirators and employees to maximize clients’ refunds by falsely filing for $4,000 education credits. To conceal her role in the fraud, Vega omitted her name and preparer identification number on the bogus returns she personally put together.
Vega also admitted that she and her co-conspirators stole the personal identifying information of various victims, including minors, and used them on the false tax returns in order to further inflate IRS refunds.
In addition to charging her clients between $150 and $200 per return, Vega also stole more than $300,000 from them by directing their refunds into bank accounts that she controlled, court documents state.
Moreover, the defendant evaded her own income taxes and filed false personal tax returns in which she fraudulently claimed withholding credits, education credits and tax credits for supposed dependents that she did not support and who were not related to her, the plea agreement states.
Vega evaded more than $156,000 in taxes from 2009 through 2013, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Vega was arrested on firearm charges in December 2014. The following month, she was released on bond and ordered not to commit any crimes — specifically filing false tax returns — while on her own recognizance. Nonetheless, she once again began filing false returns with the IRS within days of her release, prosecutors said.
The IRS uncovered the fraud, and Vega was again jailed in February of last year.
Separately, four other defendants have admitted to roles in the conspiracy. Also entering guilty pleas in the case were San Diego residents Tammie Cowles, 41, Deanna Dave, 49, Stephen Elliott, 28, and Justin Vega, 26. They are due to be sentenced over the next several months.
Vega’s husband, Jamie Lang, 27, has been sentenced to 30 months in custody for possessing the unregistered shotgun confiscated from the couple’s home.
–City News Service
