Tax preparer gets 51 months for fraudulent tax-refund scheme

A former Jackson tax preparer was sentenced this week to four years and three months in federal prison in connection with a scheme in which she admitted to filing false income tax returns under clients' names, claiming excessive refunds and pocketing some of the money.

Cynthia Raymond pleaded guilty in September 2013 to five counts of fraud for filing false income tax returns and one count of aggravated identity theft.

In exchange for her guilty plea, prosecutors dropped four similar charges.

In August, prosecutors accused Raymond of falsifying medical documents in an attempt to avoid prison time. She later admitted to those accusations, federal court records show.

Raymond was sentenced Monday to three years in prison on each of the fraud charges and four years and three months in prison on the identity-theft charge. The sentences are to run concurrently, meaning she faces 51 months in federal prison.

In addition, Raymond must pay $336,233 in restitution and $600 in special assessments, federal court records show. When she gets out of prison, she will be placed on one year of supervised release.

According to a plea agreement filed last year, Raymond filed about 98 false tax returns under 36 clients' names without their knowledge.

On the false returns, Raymond claimed deductions such as medical expenses, false tax credits, unreimbursed business expenses, charitable contributions and business losses, including some for businesses that did not exist.

With each false return, Raymond filed a form authorizing the refund to be direct deposited into more than one bank account, directing part of the refund to the client's account and the rest to her own, according to the plea agreement.

She then gave the client a false tax return listing a refund that matched the amount she directed into the client's account, the agreement stated.

Raymond also used -- without authorization -- an Employer Identification Number assigned to H&R Block to file the false returns, according to the agreement.

In August, prosecutors filed a motion to enhance Raymond's offense level, thus qualifying her for a heavier sentence, after she directed her attorney to submit to the court two letters and an email message purported to be from two doctors as part of an Aug. 15 memorandum seeking probation, restitution and community service instead of prison time.

The documents claimed she was undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer and a back problem.

The Aug. 15 memorandum blamed some of Raymond's behavior on her marriage to an abusive man and claimed she needed to be free to care for her daughter and young grandson and undergo medical treatment for the health issues mentioned in the letters and email.

But the Aug. 19 motion filed by federal prosecutors stated one doctor denied writing either the letter or the email attributed to him, and a nurse for the other doctor said she did not recognize Raymond's name and couldn't find any record of her in the hospital's computer system.

"The defendant has a history of making false claims about her health," the motion stated, listing 11 instances in which Raymond had claimed to have a variety of medical issues, including eight types of cancer, a kidney transplant and a miscarriage.

Court records show on Sept. 25, Raymond admitted she had caused forged documents to be submitted to the court and had violated the terms of her plea agreement.

epriddy@semissourian.com

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