IRS Refund Scam Yields Four Years In Jail

MIAMI, FL — A 53-year-old man was sentenced to four years in prison in connection with a multi-million dollar IRS refund scam in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. The scam involved more than 2,000 phony tax returns amounting to more than $2 million in phony refunds. Evens Julien of Lauderhill was also ordered to pay back $1.1. million to the Internal Revenue Service.

The sentence was announced on Wednesday by Principal Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General Richard Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and Acting U.S. Attorney Benjamin G. Greenberg in Miami.

Federal prosecutors said that Evens and others submitted the refund requests between 2008 and January 2015 using stolen IDs from inmates and dead people among others.

"Julien and his co-conspirators recruited others to obtain Electronic Filing Identification Numbers from the IRS in their names and used the EFINs to file the fraudulent returns," prosecutors said. "They directed the refunds to debit cards and treasury checks and had them mailed to South Florida addresses. They then cashed the fraudulently obtained refund checks at check cashing stores and used Western Union and ATMs to withdraw the funds."

Julien pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to defraud the IRS, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

In addition to the jail sentence and restitution, U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno also ordered Julien to serve four years of supervised release.

The investigation was conducted by special agents of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil Karadbil and Assistant Chief Greg Tortella of the Tax Division.

Photo courtesy Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. U.S. Courthouse