{"id":14458,"date":"2012-05-10T16:32:28","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T20:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14458"},"modified":"2012-05-10T16:32:28","modified_gmt":"2012-05-10T20:32:28","slug":"drop-parties-hostess-surrenders-to-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14458","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Drop Parties\u2019 Hostess Surrenders To Police"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY IRIS B. HOLTON<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Sentinel City Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last year, as cases of tax fraud reached epidemic proportions in the Tampa Bay area, law enforcement formed a multi-agency task force. Through investigations and arrests, the task force continues to uncover information about bogus tax frauds and the manner in which they are committed.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, <strong>Ms. Arswaya Ralph<\/strong>, 33, of Riverview, surrendered to police.\u00a0 She was charged with filing 65 false income tax claims and identity theft.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Ralph<\/strong> entered into a plea agreement with the U. S. Attorney\u2019s Office, Middle District of Florida. She will appear before<strong> Judge Pizzo<\/strong> on May 21st to enter the plea.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, officials learned that <strong>Ms. Ralph<\/strong> and others were using stolen identities to perpetuate the tax frauds. According to court documents, \u201c<strong>Ralph<\/strong> and others were filing fraudulent federal income tax returns with stolen identities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026The investigation also revealed that <strong>Ralph<\/strong> attended and hosted \u201cDrop Parties\u201d during which she and others filed numerous fraudulent income tax returns at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On June 2, 2011, during the execution of a search warrant, law enforcement recovered and confiscated numerous items. Some of the items confiscated included a 2010 Buick Lacrosee, $31,407 in cash, 42 preloaded debit cards, a pair of Gucci sunglasses with the case, two laptop computers, and approximately a dozen handwritten ledgers.<\/p>\n<p>The ledgers contained the names, dates of birth, social security numbers and other personal identification. The ledgers also contained bank account and routing numbers, court documents showed.<\/p>\n<p>Police also seized designer clothing, shoes, luggage, handbags, and a pink firearm. Authorities said <strong>Ms. Ralph<\/strong> had not reported any legitimate income during 2011.<\/p>\n<p>After having heard her Miranda warnings, <strong>Ms. Ralph<\/strong> told law enforcement that she had been filing fraudulent tax returns since August or September 2010, and that she had purchased the vehicle with some of the funds.<\/p>\n<p>According to court documents, the 65 false claims alone resulted in an intended loss of $467,781 from the Internal Revenue Service.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ms. Ralph<\/strong> is facing a maximum of five years and a fine of $250,000 for making a false claim, and a maximum of 15 years in prison on the charge of identity theft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor Last year, as cases of tax fraud reached epidemic proportions in the Tampa Bay area, law enforcement formed a multi-agency task force. Through investigations and arrests, the task force continues to uncover information about bogus tax frauds and the manner in which they are committed. On Tuesday, Ms. [&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-14458","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\/14458","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=14458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}