VALDOSTA, Ga. (WTXL) - Two people formerly of Valdosta, and one person from Douglas were sentenced for aggravated identity theft and for their involvement in a fraudulent income tax fraud scheme.
The scheme sought more than $2 million in refunds and involved the filing of approximately 984 returns using stolen identities. Many of the identities belonged to minors.
On July 11, 2018, a U.S. District Court judge handed down sentences for the three: Saferia Johnson, 34, formerly of Valdosta; Leo McGill, 51, of Valdosta; and Detrone Middleton, 38, of Douglas.
Johnson and McGill each received just sort of six years in federal prison , and Middleton received a 64-month (about two a half years) federal prison sentence. The defendants were also sentenced to jointly pay the Internal Revenue Service $1,498,776 in restitution. There is no parole in the federal system.
"The sentences imposed on these three defendants bear witness to the fact that easy money means hard time in the federal criminal justice system," Charles E. Peeler, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, said Monday in a news release.
In 2012, the Internal Revenue Service began an investigation after receiving information that accounts controlled by the three co-defendants and others had received a large number of federal tax refund deposits issued in the name of people other than the owners of the bank accounts.
The fraudulent federal incomes tax returns were filed for tax years 2010 and 2011, and the refunds were deposited into 45 separate bank accounts.
Refunds totaling $1,498,776.00, the restitution amount ordered, were paid. Both McGill and Middleton admitted that those amounts were received by them or their associates.
