Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Identity Theft Involvement

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (702 Times, NV Globe)– A Georgia man was sentenced to federal prison by a Nevada court for his participation in an identity fraud scheme.

According to an IRS press statement, Melvin Orellana of Rome, Georgia, was imprisoned to 18 months in federal prison and supervised release of three years.

He collaborated with Isaac Umoreon, who ran Universal Tax Services (UTS), a tax preparation service based in Las Vegas that employed Orellana’s software.

Orellana worked as a computer support specialist for a firm that provides software for tax to businesses across the United States.

From about May 2016 to November 2017, the two took and transmitted thousands of taxpayers’ private data to allow for Umoreon to inflate UTS’s client base in order to sell the firm for a greater price.

According to the announcement, Umoren promised to reimburse Orellana $20,000 when UTS was sold.

Orellana gave Umoren with information from nearly 12,000 individuals whose returns were completed by firms that use the tax software in August 2017. Umoren fraudulently sold UTS for $6.7 millions in November 2017 using this taxpayer data.

Credits: 8NewsNow