A woman who filed false tax returns was sentenced December 21, 2011, to 24 months in federal prison.

Demetries Johnson, 37, from Lithonia, Georgia, received the prison term after an August 4, 2011, guilty plea to four counts of making false, fictitious or fraudulent claims on U.S. Income Tax Returns.

At the guilty plea, Johnson admitted that, from 2006 through 2008, she knowingly and willfully made and presented to the Internal Revenue Service, at least 39 federal tax returns which she knew to be false, fictitious and fraudulent. Johnson prepared the federal tax returns for clients on her personal computer, and electronically filed them with the Internal Revenue Service. All of the tax returns falsely claimed a dependent and/or overstated income. These actions resulted in excess tax refunds (to which Johnson’s clients were not entitled) of more than $200,000 for tax years 2006 and 2007. In some cases, Johnson received payments from the taxpayers for her tax preparation services. In other cases, Johnson received payments by directing the deposit of refund payments into specified bank accounts.

Johnson was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade. Johnson was sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment. A special assessment of $400 was imposed and restitution of $235,822 was ordered. Johnson must also serve a 3-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

Johnson was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a date to be set.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Shawn S. Wehde and investigated by the Internal Revenue Service.

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is 11-2007.

 

 

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