Three men from Florida have been handed multiyear prison sentences for their roles in a tax scam that stole millions of dollars from the US government.
In a new press release, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says that Jonathan Carrillo, Franklin Carter Jr., and Diandre T. Mentor have all been sentenced for their roles in the scam, which was centered around filing fake tax returns.
Authorities say that between 2016 and 2020, Carrillo and Carter Jr. ran a tax preparation business while Mentor worked there as a tax preparer and manager. The trio and their co-conspirators would inflate the tax returns of their clients by adding frivolous deductions while holding training sessions teaching other employees how to do the same.
Also in 2020, it was found that Mentor started his own firm that committed the same crimes while in 2021, Carrillo started another company that followed the same model as his first. All in all, the DOJ says the scheme cost the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) $15 million.
Carrillo, Carter Jr. and Mentor were each sentenced to 121, 84, and 36 months in prison, respectively, while two of their co-conspirators – Emmanuel Almonor and Adon Hemley – were handed sentences of 57 and 46 months, according to the press release.
The three men were also ordered to pay millions of dollars each in restitution to the government.
According to a recent report by the local news outlet WKMG 6 Orlando, authorities first began looking into the firms after receiving complaints from customers that they were promised “the biggest refund possible.”
Though they would receive such a thing, they would subsequently be audited by the IRS and be forced to pay back the money.
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