Bradenton Man Pleads Guilty To Role In Stolen Identity Refund Fraud Scheme

Tampa, Florida – Esterbann Deneus (56, Bradenton) has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft of government funds and aggravated identity theft. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison. His sentencing date has not yet been set.

According to court documents and the facts presented at the plea hearing, Deneus was involved in a scheme to deposit tax refunds checks that the IRS had issued due to the filing of false and fraudulent income tax returns submitted in the names of various victim-taxpayers. Between October 2013 and July 2014, Deneus deposited a number third-party tax refund checks into a bank account that he controlled. The investigation revealed that the IRS received fraudulent tax returns resulting in the transmission of more than $84,000 in fraudulent income tax refund checks that were ultimately deposited into Deneus’s bank account. These third-party checks, made payable to victim-taxpayers who knew nothing of the refunds or the returns that had generated them, and who did not know Deneus, were also fraudulently endorsed with forged signatures of the payees.

This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jay L. Hoffer.