Woman Sentenced To Prison For Defrauding The IRS

Press Release

US Attorney's Office - San Juan

SAN JUAN, P.R. – Today, March 16, 2016, defendant Mariely
Malavet-Rivera was sentenced by United States District Court
Judge Francisco A. Besosa to serve a term of imprisonment of
34 months and was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of
$103,632.10 for defrauding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),
announced Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States.

Malavet-Rivera pled guilty on October 2, 2015, to twenty-four
counts of wire fraud, one count of theft of public money, and one
count of aggravated identity theft. These charges stemmed from a
scheme utilized by Malavet-Rivera from 2010 until 2013 to submit
false Federal tax returns seeking the additional child tax credit (AC
TC) in order to obtain fraudulent tax refunds from the IRS via check
and direct deposit. Personal identification information including in-
dividuals’ names, dates of birth, and social security numbers were
utilized without the knowledge or consent of the individual in order
to request and obtain the fraudulent tax refunds.

The false Federal tax returns contained defendant’s own postal address
and bank account information so that the fraudulent refunds would be
deposited via wire transfer to bank accounts Malavet-Rivera controlled
and the physical checks would be mailed to her postal address. The de-
fendant then used a fraudulent driver’s license or voter registration iden-
tification to cash the fraudulent refund checks through an intermediary
company.

The fraudulent tax refund scheme had a total value of approximately
$227,653.22.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Seth A.
Erbe and investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal In-
vestigation (IRS-CI).