News Release
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney
District of Rhode Island
March 5, 2009
Guilty plea in false tax refunds
Josefina Lorenzi, of Providence, pleaded guilty today to submitting a fraudulent claim to the United States Treasury. Lorenzi admitted that she participated in a scheme to obtain fraudulent refund checks based on false returns that were filed in other persons’ names, using her home address.
United States Attorney Robert Clark Corrente announced the guilty plea, which Lorenzi entered today before U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith in U.S. District Court, Providence.
At the plea hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Reich said 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 had 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.
Lorenzi, 47, pleaded guilty to making a fraudulent claim by presenting a fraudulently obtained income tax refund check. The maximum penalty is five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Lorenzi is detained in federal custody, pending sentencing, which is scheduled for July 24.
The Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service conducted the investigation.
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Contact: 401-709-5032 Thomas.connell@usdoj.gov