United States v. Camilla Vanessa Gonzalez

611 F. App'x 619
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedJune 26, 2015
Docket14-11817
StatusUnpublished

This text of 611 F. App'x 619 (United States v. Camilla Vanessa Gonzalez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Camilla Vanessa Gonzalez, 611 F. App'x 619 (11th Cir. 2015).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

A jury convicted Defendants Camilla Vanessa Gonzalez and Patricia Natasha Al-cime of conspiracy to defraud the government with respect to claims, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 286, and multiple substantive counts of theft of public money, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641, and aggravated identity theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A, all stemming from a tax fraud scheme. On appeal, Defendant Gonzalez challenges her convictions on sufficiency of the evidence grounds. Both Defendant Gonzalez and Defendant Alcime appeal their sentences. After review, we affirm Defendant Gonzalez’s convictions and total sentence. We affirm Defendant Alcime’s prison sentences, but vacate the district court’s order of restitution and remand for the district court to recalculate the amount of restitution Defendant Alcime must pay.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

A. Trial Evidence

According to the trial evidence, Defendants Gonzalez and Alcime operated Luxury Tax, a tax preparation business, with Gonzalez as the President and Alcime as the Vice President. In 2010, the Defendants each applied for and obtained preparer tax identification numbers (“PTIN”), which are required to prepare a tax return. Defendant Alcime also obtained an electronic filing identification number *622 (“EFIN”), which is required to transmit a tax return to the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”). For the 2010 tax year, Luxury Tax submitted 298 tax returns using Defendant' Gonzalez’s PTIN and 92 tax returns using Defendant Alcime’s PTIN. All of these 2010 tax returns were electronically filed using Defendant Alcime’s EFIN.

Almost all of the tax returns filed using the Defendants’ PTINs reported similar amounts of wages (generally between $6,000 and $7,000), listed the taxpayer’s occupation as “household help” or “self-employed,” and claimed the same tax credits, such as the earned income tax credit, the making work pay tax credit, and the federal fuels tax credit. Most of the returns also claimed refunds of between $2,000 and $3,000.

Defendant Alcime’s returns sought a total of $166,946 in refunds, and the IRS paid out $163,391. Defendant Gonzalez’s returns sought a total of $648,733 in refunds, and the IRS paid out $1,283,858. In total, Luxury Tax filed returns using the Defendants’ PTINs seeking refunds of $815,679, and IRS paid out $1,447,249.

The reason the IRS paid out twice what Defendant Gonzalez’s returns sought was largely because two tax returns each seeking refunds of $2,073 were filed in the name of Max Kidd and Allen Cramer, both of whom had already made large estimated quarterly tax payments to the IRS. When the IRS received the fraudulent returns, the IRS refunded the quarterly payments. In the case of Kidd, the IRS refunded $570,573, and in the case of Cramer, the IRS refunded $139,673.

According to the IRS’s investigation, all of the resulting refunds were paid to Luxury Tax’s two bank accounts or onto debit cards , controlled exclusively by Defendants Gonzalez and Alcime. Bank records indicated that none of the refund money was sent to the persons listed on the returns, but instead was used by Gonzalez and Alcime for personal expenses, such as shopping, travel, cosmetic surgery, and paying off a student loan. For example, from August 2010 until November 2011, the IRS deposited approximately $728,00 into Luxury Tax’s JPMorgan account, and $727,000 was spent. At trial, five taxpayers whose names and social security numbers were used on the Luxury Tax 2010 tax returns, including Kidd and Cramer, testified that they were not Luxury Tax clients, did not authorize the Defendants to file tax returns on their behalf, and never received any of the refunds the IRS paid into Luxury Tax’s bank accounts.

Shortly after the IRS deposited the $570,573 refund from Kidd’s purported tax return into Luxury Tax’s SunTrust bank account, SunTrust froze the funds due to suspicious activity. Because Defendant Gonzalez managed to spend some of the funds, the SunTrust account balance was approximately $511,000 when it was frozen. After the account was frozen, Defendant Gonzalez and another woman went to the bank and asked an account manager for help in accessing funds in the account. As a result of this unusually large deposit, SunTrust contacted law enforcement, which led to the investigation into the Defendants’ tax filings.

After a two-day trial, the jury convicted the Defendants as charged in the indictment except for two counts (Counts 8 and 12), which were dismissed at the close of the government’s case. Specifically, the jury convicted both Defendants of conspiracy to defraud the government by filing false federal tax returns (Count 1). In addition, the jury convicted Defendant Gonzalez of two counts of theft of public money (Counts 2 and 3) and two counts of aggravated identity theft (Counts 4 and 5), and convicted Defendant Alcime of three *623 counts of theft of public money (Counts 6, 7, and 9) and three counts of aggravated identity theft (Counts 10, 11, and 13). 1

B. Presentence Investigation Reports

According to the presentence investigation reports (“PSI”) for both Defendants, 522 tax returns were filed in 2010 using the EFIN registered to Luxury Tax. Approximately 621 tax returns were filed in 2010 using Gonzalez’s PTIN, 299 of those returns using Luxury Tax’s EFIN, and the other 322 returns using an EFIN registered to a company called Tax Time. Al-cime’s PTIN was used to file 92 tax returns, all of which were filed using Luxury Tax’s EFIN. The 621 returns prepared by Gonzalez claimed $1,738,639 in refunds, and the IRS refunded $1,858,386. The 92 returns prepared by Alcime claimed $222,652 in. refunds, of which $203,831 were paid.

The PSIs recommended increasing both Defendants’ offense levels by 16 levels, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2Bl.l(b)(l)(I), because the loss amount was more than $1,000,000, but less than $2,500,000. The PSIs also recommended a 6-level increase because the offenses involved 250 or more victims, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2Bl.l(b)(2)(C).

The PSI stated that the total loss to the IRS was $2,062,217, and recommended that restitution under the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act be awarded in this amount. This amount consisted of the $1,858,386 in refunds the IRS paid as a result of Gonzalez’s 621 returns, including the Tax Time returns, and the $203,831 in refunds the IRS paid as a result of Al-cime’s 92 returns.

C. Gonzalez’s Sentencing

Gonzalez and Alcime were sentenced on the same day, with Gonzalez’s sentencing occurring first. Gonzalez objected to the PSI’s imposition of offense-level increases based on the loss amount and the number of victims, maintaining that she was innocent and therefore not responsible for the offense conduct.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States v. Jernigan
341 F.3d 1273 (Eleventh Circuit, 2003)
United States v. Joseph Silvestri
409 F.3d 1311 (Eleventh Circuit, 2005)
United States v. Scott A. Winingear
422 F.3d 1241 (Eleventh Circuit, 2005)
United States v. Darryl Arlene Grant
431 F.3d 760 (Eleventh Circuit, 2005)
United States v. Marissa Giselle Massey
443 F.3d 814 (Eleventh Circuit, 2006)
United States v. Mahendra Pratap Gupta
463 F.3d 1182 (Eleventh Circuit, 2006)
United States v. Foley
508 F.3d 627 (Eleventh Circuit, 2007)
United States v. Pugh
515 F.3d 1179 (Eleventh Circuit, 2008)
United States v. Hunt
526 F.3d 739 (Eleventh Circuit, 2008)
United States v. Jiminez
564 F.3d 1280 (Eleventh Circuit, 2009)
United States v. Tommie Huff
609 F.3d 1240 (Eleventh Circuit, 2010)
United States v. Irey
612 F.3d 1160 (Eleventh Circuit, 2010)
United States v. Mateos
623 F.3d 1350 (Eleventh Circuit, 2010)
United States v. Bradley
644 F.3d 1213 (Eleventh Circuit, 2011)
United States v. Barrington
648 F.3d 1178 (Eleventh Circuit, 2011)
United States v. McGarity
669 F.3d 1218 (Eleventh Circuit, 2012)
United States v. Ann W. McRee Joseph H. Hale
7 F.3d 976 (Eleventh Circuit, 1993)
United States v. Ronn Darnell Sterling
738 F.3d 228 (Eleventh Circuit, 2013)
United States v. Michael William Joseph, III
743 F.3d 1350 (Eleventh Circuit, 2014)
United States v. Nelida Rodriguez
751 F.3d 1244 (Eleventh Circuit, 2014)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
611 F. App'x 619, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-camilla-vanessa-gonzalez-ca11-2015.