A Mableton man who federal prosecutors said preyed on the homeless by using their identities to file bogus tax returns was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday.
Rahman Hill, 43, was part of a conspiracy that received more than $1.6 million in fraudulent tax refunds, prosecutors say. He was the fourth to be sentenced in the ongoing case.
U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said Hill, described as a co-leader of the group, and the others obtained the identifying information from people in homeless shelters, jails and other locations.
After filing the returns, the Internal Revenue Service was directed to send refund checks to bank accounts controlled by Hill and co-conspirator Kelcey Pierre Miller, 36, of Atlanta. They then drained the accounts with debit card purchases, ATM withdrawals and wire transfers.
The conspirators, who also included Keith Lamone Richard, 40, of Decatur, Peter Raymond Williams, 42, of Newark, N.J., and Jabbar Ivan Pender, 40, of Newark, filed 123 returns between December 2005 and March 2007, receiving $1,660,152 in refunds.
“The defendant sentenced today stole the identities of some of the most vulnerable citizens of our society,” Rodney E. Clarke, special agent in charge of IRS criminal investigation, said in a joint statement with the U.S. Attorney's Office. “This is not only a financial loss to the U.S. Treasury, but it also causes great harm and hardship to the victims of the identity theft.”
Clarke said anyone who believes he or she may have been the victim of tax refund-related identity theft should contact the IRS Identity Protection Specialty Unit at 1-800-908-4490.”
Yates, the federal prosecutor, said Hill will now join other co-conspirators in federal prison: Miller was sentenced to six years and three months; Richard was sentenced to three years’ probation; and Williams was sentenced to five years and three months in prison.
The fifth co-conspirator, Pender of Newark, is in federal prison on drug trafficking charges.
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