Thursday, October 20, 2016

Former IRS CI Special Agent Indicted for Tax Perjury and Other Crimes, Including Obstruction (10/20/16)

The DOJ announced, here, an indictment (actually superseding indictment), here, of a former IRS criminal investigation agent (excerpted):
A federal grand jury in Sacramento, California returned an indictment [superseding indictment, here] today charging a former Internal Revenue Service–Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) special agent with six counts of filing false income tax returns, one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct the internal revenue laws, one count of theft of government money and one count of destroying records during a federal investigation * * * *.   
According to the allegations in the indictment, Alena Aleykina, of Sacramento, a certified public accountant and former IRS-CI special agent, filed false individual income tax returns for the years 2009, 2010 and 2011, on which she claimed false filing statutes, dependents, deductions and losses and tax returns on behalf of two trusts.  The indictment further alleges that, between 2008 and 2013, Aleykina attempted to obstruct the IRS by preparing false tax returns for herself, family members, trusts and partnerships and by making false statements to representatives of the Department of the Treasury and attempted to obstruct a federal investigation by destroying evidence on a government computer.  Aleykina is also charged with fraudulently causing the IRS to issue IRS Tuition Assistance Reimbursement payments to her. 
If convicted, Aleykina faces a statutory maximum sentence of three years in prison on each count of filing a false tax return and corruptly endeavoring to obstruct the internal revenue laws, 10 years in prison for the charge of theft of government money and 20 years in prison for the destruction of evidence charge, as well as a period of supervised release and monetary penalties.
JAT Comments:

1. The indictment was filed in the Eastern District of California but only the U.S. Attorney for ND CA is on the press release.  The Superseding Indictment identifies several Government attorneys other than the USA.  The lead government attorney (per the docket sheet) is Thomas Newton, described on the indictment as "Special Attorney to the United States Attorney General"  In the docket sheet, he is identified as Thomas M. Newton with the U.S. Attorney's office in San Jose, CA.  I did some quick Google searches on "Special Attorney to the United States Attorney General," but could not discern from hurried reading of the hits precisely what that means.  I presume that the use of out of district U.S. Attorney and other attorneys is because the defendant may have worked with AUSAs in ED CA as a special agent assigned to grand jury investigations or in other capacities.

2. The original indictment, here, charging only theft of public money relating to the fraudulently causing the IRS to issue an IRS Tuition Assistance Reimbursement payment was filed on 7/28/16.  The original indictment was sealed and unsealed today, along with the filing of the superseding indictment.

3.  According to the superseding indictment, Aleykina "worked for Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation ("IRS-CI") as a Special Agent from approximately 2006 to 2014."

4.  The allegations are:

  • Counts One through Six  - tax perjury, subscribing to a false return (§ 7206(1), here)
  • Count Seven - tax obstruction (§ 7212(a), here)
  • Count Eight - theft of public money or property (18 USC § 641, here)
  • Count Nine - destruction alteration or falsification of records in Federal Investigation (18 USC § 1519, here)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please make sure that your comment is relevant to the blog entry. For those regular commenters on the blog who otherwise do not want to identify by name, readers would find it helpful if you would choose a unique anonymous indentifier other than just Anonymous. This will help readers identify other comments from a trusted source, so to speak.