Former Columbus mail carrier sentenced to 8 years in prison for role in fraud scheme
A former U.S. Postal Service worker working in Columbus has been sentenced to 97 months in prison for his alleged role in a conspiracy to file fraudulent tax refund checks totalling more than $2.5 million.
Harold Coley was convicted in September by a Columbus jury of conspiring to file fraudulent refund claims, engaging in mail fraud and engaging in embezzlement of mail, the Department of Justice said in a news release.
According to the Department of Justice, Coley worked as a mail carrier in Columbus, and in 2012 was recruited by a co-conspirator named Keisha Lanier to participate in an identity fraud scheme.
As part of the conspiracy, Coley gathered addresses related to streets on his route, including "many addresses that did not exist or related to vacant buildings," according to the department, the DOJ wrote.
He then gave them to Lanier and others so they could file fraudulent tax returns with the IRS using identities stolen by another conspirator, Tamika Floyd, who worked for the Alabama Department of Public Health. Many of those identities belonged to teenagers, the department wrote.
Lanier and the conspirators had the IRS mail fraudulent refund checks to the addresses Coley provided. The conspirators then paid Coley to intercept the checks and give them to Lanier and others. In total, the conspiracy involved more than 1,600 refund checks worth more than $2.5 million, the DOJ wrote.
Chief U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land ordered Coley ordered Coley to serve three years of supervised release and to pay $901,351 in restitution to the IRS in addition to his prison sentence.
The investigation was conducted by special agents of IRS Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Attorneys Michael C. Boteler and William Montague of the Tax Division prosecuted the case, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia, the department said.
This story was originally published December 20, 2017 at 8:53 AM with the headline "Former Columbus mail carrier sentenced to 8 years in prison for role in fraud scheme."