Alena Aleykina, Tax Fraud, California 2018

San Francisco, CA – In a shocking turn of events, a former IRS-Criminal Investigation special agent has been sentenced to serve 51 months in prison for filing false tax returns, obstruction of justice, and stealing government money.

Alena Aleykina, a 45-year-old resident of Sacramento, California, was found guilty by a federal jury in the Eastern District of California on June 15, 2018. The jury convicted her of filing false tax returns, destroying records in a federal investigation, and theft of government money.

According to the evidence presented at trial, Aleykina, who holds a master’s degree in business administration and is a Certified Public Accountant, filed six false tax returns. Three of the returns were personal, while the other three were filed in the names of trusts she created. Aleykina claimed the head of household filing status, listed false dependents, and claimed deductions for education expenses to which she was not entitled.

Aleykina also obtained a fraudulent legal separation decree from the California Superior Court for Yolo County, which allowed her and her husband to claim rental real estate loss deductions to which they were not entitled. Furthermore, on a trust tax return, she falsely claimed to be paying wages to her mother and sister to care for her son and father.

In addition to the tax fraud, Aleykina stole government funds and obstructed justice during the investigation. She stole from the IRS’s Tuition Assistance Program, a program created to allow IRS employees to take job-related classes from local colleges and educational institutions. Aleykina falsely claimed to be taking English classes from a trust registered to her sister, resulting in $4,000 in tuition reimbursement from the program.

When criminal investigators approached Aleykina to retrieve her government laptop, she lied to the agents about the location of the laptop and deleted dozens of files from the computer after the agents left.

In sentencing Aleykina, Judge John A. Mendez stated his concern that the defendant was a federal law enforcement officer and emphasized the importance of that fact when considering her betrayal of the public’s trust. Judge Mendez stated that such fraud and misconduct from a federal agent cannot be tolerated and that Aleykina’s behavior shocked the conscience.

Aleykina was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and to pay $4,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. The case was investigated by special agents of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and IRS-Criminal Investigation, with the United States Attorney’s Office in San Francisco, California, prosecuting the case with the Tax Division.

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