ID Theft Tax Scammer Gets 5.5 Years In Prison

CONCORD, NH — A New York woman was sentenced to 54 months in prison for her role in a tax refund identity theft scheme in 2012 and 2013, according to the U.S. District Court. Gladys Maria Pena Dominguez, 35, of the Bronx, formerly of Nashua, was sentenced on May 22, 2017, for her role in the scheme using personal identifying information to file false income tax returns. According to U.S. Attorney John Farley, between January 2012, and December 2013, Dominguez couriered 161 refund checks from New York, NY, to Kenneth Feliz, a co-conspirator in New Hampshire.

Feliz, in turn, gave Dominguez cash.

“As Pena knew, the checks had been obtained from the Internal Revenue Service by co-conspirators who induced the IRS to issue the checks based upon false tax returns that the co-conspirators had filed using the names and Social Security numbers of real people without their consent or knowledge,” Farley said in a statement. “The co-conspirators also reported false mailing addresses on the tax returns to cause the IRS to mail the fraudulently derived Treasury tax refund checks to locations that they controlled.”

The aggregate face value of the checks was approximately $1.1 million.

Pena previously pleaded guilty to the federal crimes of theft of government property, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy. After completing her prison sentence, she will serve three years of supervised release. She also must pay $1,095,879.44 in restitution to the IRS.

Feliz is expected to be sentenced in July.

This matter was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation unit, principally by its Manchester field office, with assistance from its field office in New York, NY, and its Fraud Detection Unit. Assistant United States Attorney Bill Morse prosecuted the case.