Lawfuel – the Law Newswire – Los Angeles, CA – Yesterday afternoon, United States District Judge Audrey B. Collins sentenced Kenneth Steve John, 47, of Stevenson Ranch, to 61 months in federal prison for his involvement in a conspiracy to defraud the Government with respect to claims, embezzlement, and aggravated identity theft charges detailed in a plea agreement previously filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles.
In addition to spending over 5 years in prison, Judge Collins ordered John to pay restitution of approximately $449,084 to the Internal Revenue Service and, further, she ordered that John be placed on supervised release for a period of 3 years after he serves his prison sentence.
According to information contained in the original indictment, beginning in January 2005 and continuing into March 2006, Kenneth John (a.k.a. Dennis Steve John, a.k.a. Robbin Michael Tucker) caused the preparation of federal income tax returns in the names of his aliases and in the names of identity theft victims on which John reported fictitious gambling winnings and withholding amounts. The gambling winnings John detailed on the false tax returns were purportedly from various horse racing tracks in the southern California area. Further, both John and his co-conspirators allegedly obtained identification in names other than their own to facilitate cashing the U.S. Treasury checks. At least one of the names they used in the scheme belongs to an unwitting victim while another name is that of a deceased person. Additionally, John and his co-conspirators caused monies to be moved through several bank accounts belonging to other individuals. Some of these individuals, through whose bank accounts money was moved, received fees for assisting with the scheme by cashing checks and moving funds.
In his plea agreement, John admitted that he and a co-conspirator filed false income tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service, claiming fraudulent refunds of at least $449,084. Further, John admitted that that he and a co-conspirator carried out their crimes by filing fraudulent Federal Income Tax Returns, Forms 1040, with the Internal Revenue Service, using fictitious names or the names of individuals whose identity they had stolen.
John was ordered by Judge Collins to begin serving his sentence immediately.
This case is the result of an investigation conducted by Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation.
