Colorado Man Sentenced For Defrauding The IRS Out Of $1.8 Million Dollars

DENVER – Thomas William Quintin, age 66, formerly of Denver, Colorado, was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson to serve 63 months in federal prison for conspiracy to defraud the United States, the United States Attorney’s Office and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation announced. Following his prison sentence, Quintin was ordered to spend 3 years on supervised release. Judge Jackson also ordered the defendant to pay $626,451.62 in restitution to the IRS.

Quintin was indicted by a federal grand jury in Denver on February 8, 2012. Quintin pled guilty on January 3, 2013, and was sentenced yesterday, Wednesday, May 8, 2013.

According to the stipulated facts contained in the plea agreement, starting in July 2009, Quintin participated in a conspiracy during the period of July 2009 through October 2009 to submit to the IRS thousands of false federal individual income tax returns claiming a total of $1,834,011 in refunds in the names of deceased individuals. As part of the scheme, the conspirators established, controlled, and operated a Colorado entity known as Total Tax Services and/or Total Tax and Accounting (TTS), which maintained an office location in Englewood, Colorado.

According to court records, Quintin and his coconspirator obtained from an online database the names, dates of birth, Social Security Numbers and other identifying information of deceased individuals which they then used to prepare and file tax returns in their names. They hired at least one individual whose job was to create email accounts for those deceased individuals. Establishing email accounts in the names of the deceased individuals was necessary in order to file the tax returns on-line. They also obtained employer identification numbers (EINs) for various businesses, which they used to claim falsely on tax returns that the deceased individuals had worked at those businesses during the year 2008, earned income, and had taxes withheld from that income; all to allow Quintin to claim false refunds based on that false income tax withholding.

“When criminals defraud the United States by obtaining false tax refunds they harm all Americans,” said U.S. Attorney John Walsh.

"The intent of this scheme was to swindle the government and the taxpaying public," said Stephen Boyd, Special Agent in Charge for IRS Criminal Investigation, Denver Field Office. “Furthermore, the IRS is aggressively pursuing those who steal others' identities in order to file false returns.”

This case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation and the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General, and is being prosecuted by Tax Division Trial Attorney John Scully and a member of the Economic Crime Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Colorado.

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