Former tax preparer pleads guilty to theft of tax refunds

Date: Dec. 9, 2024

Contact: [email protected]

BOSTON - A New Bedford woman pleaded guilty on Dec. 3, 2024 to stealing federal funds by filing false tax returns in order to obtain fraudulent tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Valentina Martinez pleaded guilty to five counts of theft of government money. Senior U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris scheduled sentencing for March 6, 2025.

According to court documents, Martinez worked for a national tax preparation service. After preparing returns for clients and providing them copies of their returns, Martinez added fraudulent claims for business deductions to the clients' returns without their knowledge and electronically filed the false returns in order to obtain fraudulent refunds. Martinez caused the tax refunds to be deposited onto debit cards that she used to make ATM withdrawals, and to pay for a Florida vacation and other purchases. Martinez's scheme was discovered and her employment terminated when a taxpayer client complained to the preparation service about a missing refund. By then, Martinez had already filed at least 12 false returns and caused more than $45,000 in losses to the IRS.

The prosecution of Martinez is part of a Stolen Identity Refund Project (SIRF) program operated by the IRS to identify tax preparers who use stolen identities to steal money from the United States Treasury by filing fake tax returns that claim tax refunds without the named taxpayer's knowledge.

The charge of theft of government money carries a maximum potential sentence of 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release. a fine of $250,000and restitution to the IRS. Sentences are imposed by the federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Jonathan Wlodyka, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), Boston Field Office made the announcement today. Assistant United States Attorney Victor A. Wild of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case.

IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.