Georgia Woman Handed Down Six-Year Sentence For False Tax Refund Conspiracy

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – On Thursday, June 4, 2015, U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger sentenced a Georgia woman to 72 months in prison for conspiring with others to file over 1,000 false tax returns and collecting more than $3.5 million in fraudulent tax refunds, announced Jill Westmoreland Rose, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.  Yolanda Tiess Kitson, 35, of Hephzibah, Ga. was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay more than $3.9 million as restitution.

Thomas J. Holloman III, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI); Russell F. Nelson, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service, Charlotte Field Division; and Thomas L. Noyes, Inspector in Charge of the Charlotte Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service join Acting U.S. Attorney Rose in making today’s announcements.

According to court records and court proceedings, Kitson conspired with Senita Dill and Ronald Jeremy Knowles to file fraudulent tax returns using the personal information of more than 1,000 veterans and their family members which Kitson had stolen through her job as a contractor at the Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Ga.  Kitson obtained the personal information from patient records and passed it to her sister, Dill.  Using that information, Dill and Knowles filed over 1,000 false tax returns and received over $3.5 million of stolen U.S. Treasury funds.  Dill and Knowles were previously sentenced to 324 and 70 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in the conspiracy.  (Please visit: http://www.justice.gov/usao-wdnc/pr/polk-co-couple-sentenced-false-tax-refund-conspiracy to view WDNC’s press release related to those prosecutions).

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Judge Reidinger also sentenced yesterday James Wesley Hills, II, 36, of Houston Texas, to serve 45 months in prison and three years of supervised release for making false claims against the United States and aggravated identity theft.  He was also ordered to pay over $60,000 in restitution.  According to court documents and the sentencing hearing, Hills gained access to personal identifying information of customers of Primerica, a financial products company, and between 2010 and 2011 he used the stolen information to file fraudulent tax returns.  Hills filed at least 38 false tax returns in this manner and collected over $50,000 of stolen U.S. Treasury funds.

IRS-CI and USPIS investigated Kitson’s case.  Hills’ investigation was also handled U.S. Secret Service.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Gast of U.S. Attorney’s Office in Asheville prosecuted both cases.