Man Collects on Fake Returns, IRS Charges

The Internal Revenue Service has arrested a Vista man suspected of submitting 28 fake income tax returns and collecting more than $124,000 in unearned tax refunds.

Using rented mailboxes in Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano, Robert Etienne Leonard submitted claims for 1990 income tax refunds under 28 different variations of the names William Smith, William Brown, Robert Davis and Robert Jones, the IRS alleged in a criminal complaint in federal court.

Leonard, 46, was arrested last week in Dana Point, and is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles pending indictment by a federal grand jury on income tax fraud charges, said his lawyer, H. Dean Steward.

U.S. Magistrate Ronald W. Rose denied Leonard’s request for bail at a hearing on March 18.

Steward, head of the federal public defender’s office in Santa Ana, questioned the timing of Leonard’s arrest.

“We’ve always accused the IRS of doing things like this right around tax time,” Steward said. “It’s ‘Mr. and Mrs. Citizen, as you fill out your taxes, think about Mr. Leonard.’ I’m surprised they haven’t put out a press release.”

“We arrest people and have these things going on all year round, but except for tax season everybody ignores it,” said IRS spokeswoman Judith Golden. “During tax season it gets more attention.”

Steward, however, insisted that the IRS has not brought a case to federal court in Santa Ana since last tax season.

Golden declined to comment on the Leonard case but said the IRS has teams of inspectors assigned to check tax returns for irregularities, including multiple filings and tax refund scams.

“Obviously, it’s something that we’re very alert to and aware of,” she said.

According to the IRS affidavit, Leonard allegedly filed one income tax return under the name William H. Smith, claiming income of $47,908 and a refund of $4,469.

Seven other returns were also filed in the name William Smith, but each with a different middle initial and a fake Social Security number, the IRS alleges.