A Salem, Mass.-based tax preparer, who sought multiple government loans, has drawn five years in prison this month. Roosevelt Fernandez, had pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated id entity theft.He must also pay $198,490 in restitution and forfeiture.
Starting about 2018, Fernandez operated a tax preparation busines, Soluciones Multi Service. He concocted W-2 forms to file federal and state tax returns on behalf of individuals without their knowledge. These included at least 40 fraudulent returns, which requested $620,000 in refunds.
Also in May 2020, an Economic Income Payment was deposited into the same account. In June 2020, he submitted a false tax filing to support the application and received $129,400 deposited into a bank account the controlled. He withdrew more than $80,000 in cash over the next two weeks.
In August that year he received $149,900 via another EDIL loan application, which used phone tax filing information.
