Owner of Okemos tax service gets 3½ years in prison
GRAND RAPIDS – The owner of an Okemos tax preparation service who admitted being part of a scheme to file false tax returns on behalf of low-income people was sentenced Wednesday to 3½ years in prison.
As part of a sentence handed down Wednesday in U.S. District Court, Takabvako Chiwocha-Crowell, 40, must pay nearly half a million dollars in restitution to the federal government.
Prosecutors said Chiwocha-Crowell caused more than 600 false individual federal tax returns to be filed with the Internal Revenue Service in 2011. She was indicted earlier this year. She pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to file false claims against the United States.
"She certainly takes responsibility for her actions and is very remorseful for her involvement in the inappropriate tax filings," said her attorney, Chris Houghtaling.
According to documents filed in advance of her sentencing, Chiwocha-Crowell is a registered nurse who once worked at Sparrow Hospital's geriatric psychiatry unit. She left the hospital in 2010, according to a spokeswoman. She is married and has two daughters. The family now lives in Fort Worth, Texas, although she has been in custody since pleading guilty.
In 2011, Chiwocha-Crowell registered a company with the state, Immediate Human Services L.L.C., at a 3,000-square-foot house on White Owl Way in Okemos owned by her father.
That company is one of three listed in court documents as being involved in the scheme.
No one else is currently facing charges, although the documents show authorities have seized several luxury vehicles and more than $4 million from 22 bank accounts connected to Chiwocha-Crowell and others believed to be part of the scheme.
An account connected to Immediate Human Services, alone, contained more than $600,000 in fraudulent tax refunds, court documents say.
As part of her plea agreement, Chiwocha-Crowell agreed to cooperate with investigators.
The scheme involved approaching low-income people and promising them "free money" through the tax system, court documents say.
Between February and July 2011, Chiwocha-Crowell and others filed more than 1,100 false tax returns, supposedly on behalf of the low-income people.
The majority of the tax returns, documents say, reported income between $6,000 and $7,500, which documents say is the income range needed to qualify for the maximum earned income tax credit for an individual. That credit allows someone to obtain a refund even if that person didn't pay income taxes.
A business card for one of the tax service businesses said, "GET FREE MONEY, IT'S YOURS," according to court documents. It promised between $400 and $4,000, depending on the number of dependents a person could claim.
In a handwritten letter submitted to the court, Chiwocha-Crowell said she "became involved in something that offered false gra(t)ification."
Reflecting on what she did, she said: "I concluded that greed was the driving factor. I know right from wrong, yet I drifted from my morals, faith and religion."