{"id":11851,"date":"2011-12-12T16:46:28","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T21:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=11851"},"modified":"2011-12-12T16:46:28","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T21:46:28","slug":"drop-queen-gets-9-years-in-federal-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=11851","title":{"rendered":"Drop Queen Gets 9 Years In Federal Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A judge sentenced a 31-year-old woman, twice arrested in connection with filing false income tax returns, to prison Thursday. Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington sentenced <strong>Ms. Shawntrece Sims<\/strong> to 9 years in federal prison for tax fraud and mail fraud.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Sims<\/strong> was also ordered to make mandatory restitution payments to the U. S. Treasury of $672,887, and to forfeit profits obtained from her scheme to defraud the government.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Shawntrece Sims<\/strong> was originally arrested on August 11th and was released on October 15th. The second arrest came about on November 5th.<br \/>\nAccording to court documents filed by the U. S. Attorney\u2019s Office, <strong>Ms. Sims<\/strong> signed a plea agreement on previous charges on February 14th. She appeared before U. S.<\/p>\n<p>Magistrate <strong>Judge Thomas G. Wilson<\/strong> on March 17th and pleaded guilty to one count of making a false claim and one count of mail fraud. She also agreed to cooperate with the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>During the court appearance, <strong>Ms. Sims<\/strong> allegedly admitted to preparing and electronically filing false income tax returns, which totaled $263,004.00 in 2008.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Sims<\/strong> was arrested again in November after police learned that she had filed approximately $400,000 in fraudulent tax returns in 2010. According to court records, <strong>Ms. Sims<\/strong> went on shopping sprees and paid $6,600 for tubal ligation reversal surgery. Investigators obtained payment records that showed<strong> Ms. Sims<\/strong> paid $4,500 in cash and the remaining balance on a pre-paid MasterCard issued in her name on March 31, 2011. The card had reportedly been loaded with $3,453 on March 17, 2011, the same day she appeared before <strong>Judge Wilson<\/strong> and entered a guilty plea.<strong>[private]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Linda J. Osuna<\/strong>, Special Agent in Charge, Tampa Field Office said, \u201cThe IRS Criminal Investigation has made investigating refund fraud and identity theft a top priority. Refunds are issued to taxpayers who are entitled to them. Our office will continue to aggressively pursue those who prepare false claims for refunds for the purpose of enriching themselves and depleting the U. S. Treasury.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last year, police launched a multi-agency investigation known as \u201cOperation Rainmaker.\u201d Police learned that the defendants allegedly filed fraudulent tax returns electronically and receiving money in checks, on debt cards, and direct deposit.<\/p>\n<p>On some occasions, the victims were deceased and in other cases, the victims were unaware that income tax claims had been filed in their names. During the first round of arrests, the multi-jurisdictional task force arrested nearly 50 people and the investigation is continuing.<strong>[\/private]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A judge sentenced a 31-year-old woman, twice arrested in connection with filing false income tax returns, to prison Thursday. Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington sentenced Ms. Shawntrece Sims to 9 years in federal prison for tax fraud and mail fraud. Ms. Sims was also ordered to make mandatory restitution payments to the U. S. Treasury of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}