Press Release
FORMER OWNER OF MORTGAGE COMPANY SENTENCED ON TAX FRAUD SCHEME
September 17, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jeffrey H. Sloman, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Daniel W. Auer, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, announced that defendant Maritza Valiente, 41, of Miami-Dade County, was sentenced today before U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro.
Valiente was sentenced to 60 months of imprisonment, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. In addition, the defendant was ordered to pay $118,091 in restitution. The sentence was the statutory maximum for a violation of making a false claim against the United States, a crime under Title 18, United States Code, Section 287. Valiente was convicted on June 11, 2009 by a federal jury after trial on charges of tax fraud.
Specifically, Valiente was convicted on all eleven counts against her, including two separate criminal False Claims Act conspiracy charges, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 286, and nine substantive criminal False Claims Act charges, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 287. All charges stemmed from a tax fraud scheme that Valiente and others committed in 1999 and 2000. Valiente and three co-defendants were initially indicted in 2004, but Valiente was not located until the fall of 2008.
According to evidence presented during the trial, Valiente and her co-conspirator tax preparers created false W-2s claiming wages and withholdings from fiscal year 1999 in the names of bogus employees of Valiente’s company, United Mortgage Financing, Inc. They used the false W-2s and other information to prepare fraudulent tax returns claiming refunds for the fictitious employees. Then, in early 2000, Valiente and her co-conspirators filed the false tax returns with the IRS and obtained refund anticipation loan checks in the names of the fictitious employees. Valiente and her co-conspirators then split the proceeds of the fraud scheme. In sum, more than 30 false tax returns were filed with the IRS as part of the scheme, causing the IRS to issue more than $100,000 in fraudulent refunds.
Mr. Sloman commended the investigative efforts of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys H. Ron Davidson and Christopher J. Hunter.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
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