IRS investigation that few are likely to grouse about
From the Special Ring of Hell files:
Eight conspirators in the massive identity fraud ring targeting mostly Fort Benning soldiers and their families were sentenced to federal prison Friday in Montgomery.
Legally, the sentences are appropriate. Viscerally, they're not enough.
The Ledger-Enquirer's Ben Wright reported the salient details of the case back in May:
The identity thieves ran a large-scale operation that ultimately involved filing more than 9,000 tax returns between 2011 and 2013. One of the key defendants, Tracy Mitchell of Phenix City, worked at Martin Army Community Hospital on post; many of the stolen identities came from hospital records. Mitchell and her daughter, Lathasha Mitchell, were also charged with identity thefts from, among other places, the Alabama Department of Corrections. (The family that preys together )
Military Times reported Tuesday that the victims included about 1,500 soldiers and their families; some of these soldiers were victimized while they were hospitalized at Martin Army, others while they were deployed to Afghanistan.
According to the Times story, "Tax refunds that were legitimately due to some soldiers were denied when their personal data was stolen and used to get a fraudulent refund." Victims also included employees of several Alabama state agencies, an unidentified Georgia business and a Georgia call center.
All in all, investigators estimate that the identity theft ring claimed more than $24 million in bogus or stolen tax refunds.
The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation unit, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command and the Department of Justice. Whatever political hot water the IRS has gotten itself into in recent years, there are precious few Americans who wouldn't be on the agency's side in this pursuit.
"To steal the identity of a soldier serving his/her country is the lowest form of thievery," U.S. Attorney George L. Beck Jr. said when the indictments were made public in May. " We will continue our efforts to stamp out this crime."
At Friday's sentencing, the mother of a 19-year-old Fort Benning soldier offered this victim-impact statement:
"While he was fighting for our country and all back home I received a very disturbing phone call from an agent from the IRS that my son, while at Fort Benning training to defend our country, had his identity stolen and fraudulent tax returns were filed with his Social Security number. This news was devastating to think that my 19-year-old son was wronged by one of those people [he] was willing to die for "
The conscienceless calculation behind a scheme like this is incomprehensible to a morally coherent mind. Now the people involved have been sentenced to a combined 50 years or so behind bars. May the time they serve be as hard as the law allows.
This story was originally published August 13, 2015 at 3:58 PM with the headline "IRS investigation that few are likely to grouse about."