A now-former IRS agent developed an elaborate impersonation scheme in an attempt to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars a married couple owed the IRS, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“It is outrageous for an IRS employee to use her position to steal a citizen’s identity so she could steal taxpayer funds,” U.S. Attorney John Horn said in a statement released by the DOJ. “Citizens count on the honesty and integrity of thousands of IRS employees every day to safeguard their private information, and breaches of this trust will be prosecuted and punished.”
Creshika C. Wise of Georgia recently pleaded guilty in federal court to aggravated identity theft after she tried to steal as much as she could of the $758,846 a couple she audited still owed the IRS after filing their 2011 taxes.
Wise also altered what the couple owed in IRS records to $282,363, but the unidentified couple’s accountant agreed in October 2013 they still owed that amount from 2011.
Wise told the couple to wire the $758,846 to an account she set up for herself, but the couple had already mailed a check to the IRS. Wise “did not abandon her scheme there,” altering the couple’s address on record with the IRS to a P.O. box she set up in hopes of a $470,000 tax refund, the DOJ said.
Wise then opened a joint checking account under the taxpayers’ names, using the husband’s Social Security number and forging their signatures. Wise told the bank she needed the account opened as quickly as possible because she was expecting money from the IRS.
The money never arrived, but federal investigators did. (RELATED: IRS Employee Collected Unemployment For Five Years And Nobody Noticed)
Wise worked for the IRS from 2008 until the spring of 2016, when she resigned after her arrest.
Wise will be sentenced August 3 in federal court in Georgia.
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