UnReliable; Terminated; the wire tap; and other highlights of recent tax cases.
Kinston, North Carolina: Preparer Hildares Kinkesha Parker-Greene has pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States.
In early 2016 Parker-Greene managed a prep business and conspired with another preparer to fraudulently inflate clients’ refunds by claiming false wages, federal income tax withholdings and dependents. Between 2017 and 2018, Parker-Greene operated a prep business out of her home and continued to prepare false returns for clients.
The false returns prepared by Parker-Greene and her co-conspirator sought to defraud the IRS of more than $550,000.
She faces a maximum of five years in prison, a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties.
Wharton, New Jersey: Construction company owner Roger Magill has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for filing returns that failed to report all his personal income.
Magill, who previously pleaded guilty, owned and operated Reliable Construction, a.k.a. Reliable Paving, and Hackensack Pavers, a.k.a. Hackensack Paving, and between 2014 and 2016 obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal income from his construction businesses. He attempted to hide this money from the IRS by using a fictitious identity to cash business checks at several check cashing businesses. He also deposited money in bank accounts that he did not report to the IRS.
He evaded paying $261,758 in personal income taxes.
Magill was also sentenced to two years of supervised release.
Lowell, Massachusetts: Former state representative David M. Nangle has pleaded guilty to illegally using campaign funds to pay for his personal expenses, defrauding a bank to obtain loans to purchase his home and repay his personal debts, and collecting income that he failed to report to the IRS.
Nangle pleaded guilty to five counts of filing false tax returns as well as to 10 counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud and four counts of making false statements to a bank.
From 1999 to 2020, Nangle was the elected member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for the 17th Middlesex District. Nangle, who previously served as a House Ethics Committee Chairman, used his campaign committee’s debit card to make personal purchases, including thousands of dollars in gift cards for his personal use, among other things. During the period of the charged offenses, he was heavily in debt and gambled extensively and then used thousands of dollars in campaign funds to pay for various personal expenses such as dues at a local golf club, rental cars to travel to casinos, flowers, gas, hotels and restaurants. Nangle concealed his theft with false reports that disguised the personal nature of the spending.
From at least 2015 to 2018, Nangle schemed to fraudulently obtain loans from a bank to finance the purchase of his home, fund his gambling and repay personal debts. He made false statements on multiple loan applications.
Nangle filed false returns for 2014 to 2018 by reporting fictitious business deductions for “consulting” work. He also double dipped on deductible expenses arising from work as a state legislator, fraudulently claiming thousands in false deductions for alleged charitable donations and misleading his tax preparer. He also hid income he received through goods and services from business owners and other sources, including $7,000 in kitchen and bathroom work done in his home and $7,000 in check payments from a contractor; gambling income from a Connecticut casino; and thousands of dollars he stole from his campaign account.
Sentencing is June 24. The charge of filing false returns provides for a sentence of up to three years in prison, a year of supervised release and a fine of $100,000. The charge of wire fraud provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a bank each provide for a sentence of up to 30 years in prison, five years of supervised release and a fine of $1 million.
Rochester, New York: Robert Fitzgerald, who was convicted of failing to collect and pay over payroll taxes to the IRS, has been sentenced to a year’s probation and ordered to pay $122,207.16 in restitution to the IRS.
Fitzgerald was the principal corporate officer of Fitzgerald Coaching Inc., a real estate listings referral company. During 2010 through 2017, the company failed to report wages that were subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes totaling $55,487.65. The employer portion of the Social Security and Medicare taxes not paid to the IRS was $66,720.11.
Upper Marlboro, Maryland: Preparer Anita Fortune, 56, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and to aiding in the preparation of a false return.
Fortune provided tax prep services under multiple business names, including Tax Terminatorz Inc. She prepared and filed returns using co-conspirators’ EFINs and identifiers, which they provided in exchange for fees and office space. For tax years 2011 to 2018, Fortune and her associates fraudulently reduced their clients’ tax liabilities and increased their refunds with fictitious or inflated itemized deductions and business losses.
Fortune caused a federal tax loss totaling $189,748.
Sentencing is June 4, when she faces a maximum of five years in prison for the conspiracy count and three years for the count of preparing a false return. Fortune also faces a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties.
Centerville, Massachusetts: Bookkeeper Jessica L. Greenan has been sentenced to 70 months in prison and five years of supervised release for embezzling more than $1.5 million and for tax offenses.
Greenan previously pleaded guilty to five counts of wire fraud and five counts of filing false federal returns for embezzling $1.1 million. She also pleaded guilty to another indictment charging seven counts of wire fraud, two counts of bank fraud and two counts of aggravated ID theft for embezzling more than $390,000 from a different employer. Several of the charges in the one indictment occurred after she was released on conditions in the earlier prosecution.
Greenan admitted to embezzling from a Hyannis, Massachusetts, company for which she handled bookkeeping and payroll services. From October 2014 until she was terminated in March 2018, she embezzled $1,135,460, including on 536 occasions when she wired funds from the store's operating bank account to pay her credit card bills. Greenan doctored the company bank statements and internal records to make the payments to her credit cards appear to be legitimate expenses, and also failed to report any of her illegal income to the IRS over the five years of the embezzlement, evading more than $325,000 in federal taxes.
After being fired by the first employer, she got a job as the bookkeeper for a Cape Cod construction company in August 2018 and immediately began stealing company funds. Until her new scheme was discovered, Greenan embezzled more than $287,000 by wiring payments from a company bank account to pay her credit cards, made more than $5,300 in unauthorized charges to a company credit card and converted more than $11,000 of company funds to pay auto loans. Greenan forged the company owner's signature to transfer company funds, and then fraudulently obtained more than $6,300 in unauthorized payroll after her employment had been terminated.
She was also ordered to pay restitution of $1,528,128 to the fraud victims, $412,354 to the IRS, and to forfeit two vehicles.
Erie, Pennsylvania: Resident Andrea Jones has been sentenced to two years of probation, 50 hours of community service and a $1,400 special assessment on her conviction of filing false income tax returns and aiding and assisting the filing of false and fraudulent returns.
Jones prepared and filed false federal income tax returns for herself and others who used her as their preparer for tax years 2011 through 2015.
