United States v. Versiah M. Taylor

652 F. App'x 902
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedJune 21, 2016
Docket14-12626
StatusUnpublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 652 F. App'x 902 (United States v. Versiah M. Taylor) 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. Versiah M. Taylor, 652 F. App'x 902 (11th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

We send criminals to prison to show them the error of their ways. But some are not so easily deterred, and more than a few even persist in committing crimes while confined. Tracy Collier is one. Between September 2011 and August 2012, while locked up at Okaloosa County Correctional Facility, he and his co-conspirator, Versiah Taylor, engaged in what is known as a prison tax fraud scam. When authorities uncovered the scheme, they charged Collier and Taylor with conspiring to defraud the government, tax fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. A jury convicted both men and a judge imposed substantial sentences on them. This is their consolidated appeal.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

From September 2011 through August 2012, Taylor and Collier participated in a prison tax fraud scam. Collier, an inmate at Florida’s Okaloosa County Correctional Institution, stole other inmates’ personal identifying information (“identifying information”) — chiefly names, birth dates, and social security numbers — and mailed it to Taylor, who was on the outside. The defendants went to some lengths to conceal their activities. For instance, instead of addressing his letters to Taylor, Collier often used Taylor’s aliases. Even more creatively, to sneak the stolen identifying information past prison mail screeners, Collier camouflaged it in phony legal case citations or phone numbers. When Taylor received Collier’s letters, he and his girlfriend, Joshca Hall, decoded the citations and used the stolen identifying information to electronically file fraudulent tax returns and obtain tax refunds to which they were not entitled. Collier- and Hall arranged for the refunds to be directly deposited on prepaid debit cards to which they had access and from which they would withdraw the funds.

Collier was not Taylor’s only source of identifying information. Hall testified at trial, for example, that she and Taylor formed a sham legal research company called Pro Se Networking Assistance, LLC, and that inmates seeking the company’s services sent Taylor forms containing their identifying information, which he then used to file fraudulent tax returns. Hall also testified that she and Taylor marketed to inmates the services of another phony company, called Panhandle Express; that the inmates who sought its services sent Taylor forms containing their identifying information; and that he used that identifying information to file still more fraudulent returns.

In its entirety, the scheme involved the filing of at least 76 fraudulent tax returns collectively claiming more than half a million dollars in refunds. The IRS issued *905 $107,422 in refunds before its agents caught on. The defendants were indicted for conspiring to defraud the government, tax fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. During their six-day trial a lot of evidence was presented against them. The government’s case against Collier featured the letters he sent to Taylor containing inmates’ coded identifying information; a letter from another inmate, found in Collier’s prison cell, containing “two names with info” and offering to “work something out” for “seven more”; records showing that, after the scam got underway, Taylor began making relatively large (by prison standards) deposits into Collier’s prison canteen account; and the testimony of several Okaloosa inmates whose identifying information had been misappropriated in the scheme. One of the inmates, Kevin Bartley, testified that Collier asked him about filing a fraudulent tax return using his identifying information and “explained] the process” of filing a false return to him. Collier moved for judgment of acquittal at the close of the prosecution’s case and again at the close of the evidence, both times on the ground that there was insufficient evidence tying him to the scam. Unsurprisingly, the district court denied both motions.

The government’s case against Taylor was even stronger than its case against Collier. In addition to the correspondence between the defendants, the government showed how 76 of the fraudulent returns were traceable either to internet protocol addresses affiliated with Taylor or to a red laptop seized from his office. It also established that more than 80 fraudulent returns were filed using TurboTax unique identifier numbers from the red laptop. In addition to all of that evidence, Hall testified that Taylor had orchestrated the scheme and been the one who prepared and filed the fraudulent returns from the laptop.

On cross-examination, Taylor tried to get Hall to testify that Taylor had been out of town and away from the office and the red laptop during April of 2012. The government objected, arguing that, because Taylor had not filed a notice of alibi, he was prohibited from presenting that testimony because it was in the nature of an alibi. Taylor argued that he was just trying to show that other people had access to the laptop while he was out of the office, but the district court sustained the government’s objection and prohibited Taylor from asking Hall any more questions about Taylor’s absence from the office during the period covered by the scheme. A similar issue arose later when Taylor sought to introduce testimony from his cousin, Antonio, that he and Taylor had been on vacation and away from the red laptop during some of the time when the scheme was ongoing. The government again objected that the testimony was improper alibi testimony and the district court again sustained the objection on that ground.

The defendants sought to call some witnesses who, according to the government, were at risk, of incriminating themselves through their testimony. The government informed the district court, for example, that Kingston Murphy, one of the witnesses the defendants intended to call, had already given a statement to the government admitting her involvement in the tax fraud scam. In,explaining why Murphy had not been prosecuted based on her statement, the government said it was not “in the [business] of charging someone when pretty much th[e] predominant evidence [against them] is [their] own statement.” But, the government continued, it was in the business of charging people based on testimony they gave under oath, so there was a real chance that, if she testified *906 about the scheme, Murphy would expose herself to prosecution.

The government also named Tammy Paulette, another potential defense witness, as someone who might require advice about her Fifth Amendment rights since there was some evidence implicating her in the scam. Specifically, the government noted that a letter from Collier to Taylor had been addressed to Paulette and mailed to her home, and her home address had been used on some of the false returns filed in the scheme.

The government went through the same process for more than half-a-dozen other defense witnesses, identifying specific facts showing a reasonable likelihood of self-incrimination if they were called to testify. Based on that evidence, it asked the district court to advise those witnesses, outside the presence of the jury, of their Fifth Amendment rights. The defendants argued that such warnings were unnecessary, but the district court disagreed.

On the fifth day of trial, before the jury entered the courtroom, the district court called Paulette to the stand and fully advised her of her Fifth Amendment rights.

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Related

United States v. Tracy L. Collier
710 F. App'x 434 (Eleventh Circuit, 2018)
United States v. Versiah Taylor
702 F. App'x 836 (Eleventh Circuit, 2017)

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Bluebook (online)
652 F. App'x 902, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-versiah-m-taylor-ca11-2016.