FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Alabama State Employee Sentenced to Prison for Stolen Identity Refund Fraud
Chequlia Motley of Montgomery, Ala., was sentenced yesterday to serve 36 months in prison for conspiracy and aggravated identity theft, announced Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Keneally of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama George L. Beck Jr. Motley pleaded guilty to those charges in May 2013.
According to Motley’s plea agreement, she was a former state employee who stole identities from state databases and sold them to co-conspirators. As evidence presented at the sentencing hearing showed, Motley had previously worked for the Alabama State Employees’ Insurance Board and stole the personal information of over 100 state workers and their family members from the databases maintained by the board. She provided this information to Veronica Temple, Yolanda Moses and Barbara Murry, who used the stolen identities to file false tax returns that fraudulently requested tax refunds from the IRS. Temple, Moses and Murry were previously convicted and each sentenced in February to 57 months in prison.
In addition to the prison sentence, Motley was ordered to pay $179,946 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The case was investigated by agents of the IRS - Criminal Investigation. Trial Attorneys Michael Boteler and Jason Poole of the Justice Department’s Tax Division prosecuted the case, with the assistance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama and, in particular, Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Brown.
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