News Release
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney
District of Rhode Island
July 27, 2009
Defendant sentenced in false tax refund scheme
A federal judge today sentenced Josefina Lorenzi, age 47, of Providence, to time served for submitting a fraudulent claim to the United States Treasury. She has been incarcerated since her arrest on December 11, 2008. Lorenzipleaded guilty to that offense, admitting that she participated in a scheme to obtain fraudulent refund checks based on false returns that were filed in other persons’ names, but using her home address.
Acting United States Attorney Luis M. Matos announced the sentence, which U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smithimposed today in U.S. District Court, Providence. The judge also ordered Lorenzi to pay restitution to the Internal Revenue Service and to the U.S. Postal Service. As part of her supervised release, the defendant will be required to surrender herself for deportation.
At the plea hearing in March, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew J. Reichsaid the government could prove that in December 2008, Lorenzi approached an employee of a check cashing store seeking to cash federal income tax refund checks. Lorenzi asked the employee to come to her home on Indiana Avenue, Providence. The owner of the store notified federal agents, who then monitored a conversation between Lorenzi and the employee. Lorenzi said that she would be getting a large number of refund checks from tax returns that had been fraudulently filed.
On December 10, Lorenzi went to the check cashing store and gave the employee a refund check in the amount of $8,885, payable to a name other than Lorenzi. Agents subsequently determined that the underlying return and been falsely filed. Later that day, the employee, working in cooperation with federal agents, went to Lorenzi’s home and gave her $8,885 in cash. Lorenzi gave the employee two more refund checks to cash, in the amounts of $2,722 and $2,725, both payable to other individuals.
Agents obtained a federal search warrant and found at Lorenzi’s home eight additional refund checks totaling $22,526, payable to individuals other than Lorenzi. Agents later determined that 27 additional false returns had been filed in names other than Lorenzi’s, but using Lorenzi’s home address. These additional returns claimed refunds totaling $113,503. In all, between the refund checks Lorenzi cashed, the checks found in her home, a stimulus check for $900 that she had cashed, and the additional refund requests, the amount of fraudulent refunds totaled $150,360.
The Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service Fraud Detection Center at the Andover Service Center, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service conducted the investigation.
Contact: 401-709-5000
USARI.Media@usdoj.gov