Veronica Hope Fortune, Tax Fraud, Maryland 2021

Greenbelt, Maryland – In a shocking turn of events, Veronica Hope Fortune, a 54-year-old tax preparer from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and to assisting in the preparation and filing of false tax returns.

The guilty plea, announced by Acting United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Jonathan F. Lenzner, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, and Acting Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon of the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation, Washington, D.C. Field Office, stems from Fortune’s involvement in a tax fraud conspiracy that spanned several years.

According to Fortune’s plea agreement, in August 2015, Fortune was a tax preparer in Maryland with electronic tax return filing privileges from the Internal Revenue System (IRS). She agreed to allow Co-Conspirator 1 and Co-Conspirator 2, both of whom had been suspended from the IRS’s e-filing program, to use Fortune’s unique electronic filing identifiers, in exchange for the use of Co-Conspirator 1 and Co-Conspirator 2’s shared office space in Temple Hills, Maryland.

Co-Conspirator 1 and Co-Conspirator 2 misrepresented their identities on their clients’ tax returns by using Fortune’s identifiers to prepare and electronically file the tax returns with the IRS. Fortune also joined in her co-conspirators’ practice of falsifying tax returns and fraudulently claiming refunds. Specifically, Fortune and her co-conspirators falsified tax returns by: fabricating, inflating, and improperly claiming items on the Schedules A that were attached to clients’ federal individual income tax returns; and engineering business losses on Schedules C by fabricating, inflating, and improperly claiming purported business expenses.

As a result, Fortune, Co-Conspirator 1, and Co-Conspirator 2 artificially lowered their clients’ taxable income, thereby lowering the taxes that the clients owed to the IRS and inflating their refunds. The tax loss caused to the IRS as a direct result of Fortune and her co-conspirators’ conspiracy for the tax years 2012 through 2018 was $189,748.

Fortune faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for the conspiracy and a maximum of three years in federal prison for aiding and assisting in the preparation and filing of false tax returns. U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm has scheduled sentencing for August 20, 2021.

Acting United States Attorney Jonathan F. Lenzner commended the IRS-Criminal Investigation for its work in the investigation. Mr. Lenzner thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Leah Grossi and Trial Attorney Kathryn Sparks of the Tax Division, who are prosecuting the case.

Fortune will be required to pay restitution in the full amount of the loss, which the parties stipulate is at least $189,748.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/third-former-maryland-tax-preparer-pleads-guilty-federal-tax-fraud-conspiracy