Pair is indicted on tax fraud
The owner of a Riverside halfway house and a homeless man were indicted by a federal grand jury Friday on tax fraud charges, alleging that they attempted to claim more than $600,000 in bogus refunds.
Peaches Mercer Turner, owner of the halfway house, was also charged with aggravated identity theft, wire fraud and obstructing an IRS investigation.
The indictments were the latest in a series of legal moves aimed at cracking down on bogus claims for a one-time break that refunds taxes people paid on long-distance charges, which have since been rescinded.
This federal tax, which will result in most individuals receiving a $30 credit, has proved among the most vexing challenges to tax authorities this year.
About 30% of consumers who are due telephone tax refunds aren’t claiming them, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Meanwhile, dozens of allegedly false claims for vastly inflated refunds have been submitted.
In February, tax authorities issued search warrants in nine U.S. cities, including Riverside to collect information about allegedly bogus claims.
The indictment handed down Friday charges that Turner and Alejandro Berdin, also known as Crystal Berdin, conspired to file about 20 fraudulent tax returns over the last two years, claiming more than $600,000 in bogus refunds.
The allegedly fraudulent returns filed by the pair last year centered on the earned income tax credit alone. According to the indictment, Turner paid associates to provide the names and Social Security numbers of their dependent children.
She then used that information to claim the EITC, which is a lucrative tax credit for the working poor, for individuals who had no qualifying children, according to the indictment. Those returns claimed refunds of $3,470 to $4,948. The indictment says that this year, Turner and Berdin filed fraudulent claims for the EITC and the telephone tax.
Berdin’s return allegedly claimed $33,714 in phony tax refunds. For that claim to be legitimate, he would have had to made nearly $1 million in long-distance calls, according to an affidavit for a search warrant filed in the case. Berdin was unemployed and residing in a sober living facility operated by Turner, making the long-distance calls unlikely, the affidavit said.
Neither Berdin nor Turner could be reached for comment Friday. They were taken into custody and are expected to be arraigned Monday.
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