Charlie Frank Adams, IRS Tax Scam, FL 2024

A Tampa, Florida man was sentenced to 54 months in prison for his role in a multi-million dollar IRS tax scam.

Charlie Frank Adams, 23, was convicted of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States and Aggravated Identity Theft and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on the conspiracy charge and 24 months on the ID theft charge, to be served consecutively. Upon release from prison, he will be on supervised release for 3 years.

Adams was also ordered to make restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and ID theft victims in the total amount of $421,832.83. He was involved in a scheme to defraud the United States by using personal identifying information, including names, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth of other individuals to file bogus income tax returns showing tax refunds due.

The requested refunds total approximately $1 million, and the IRS paid fraudulent claims of over $400,000 before the fraud was discovered. Adams filed bogus tax returns using stolen identifying information received from a co-conspirator, kept the co-conspirator informed as to whether the returns were accepted by the IRS and, if so, to which address the refunds would be mailed.

He also provided stolen identifying information to his co-conspirators. Adams was part of a group of 11 individuals who were indicted on the above charges by a federal grand jury on May 8, 2013. Adams pled guilty on October 29, 2013.

The case was investigated by the Vermillion Police Department, the South Dakota Division of Criminal Assistance, and the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. Assistant U.S. Attorney John E. Haak prosecuted the case. Adams was immediately turned over to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Several of Adams’ co-defendants attended the University of South Dakota in Vermillion and are former members of the football team. The case highlights the need for individuals to be vigilant and protect their personal identifying information from falling into the wrong hands.

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