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Ridgefield NJ, a Bergen County, New Jersey, man was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for his role in a multi-year scheme to defraud financial institutions and others, Rahul Agarwal, Attorney for the United States in this matter, announced.
Continue reading Bergen County Man Sentenced to 18 Months for Short Sale Real-estate Fraud Scheme
Mail carrier from Ridgewood sentenced to home confinement in fraud scheme
JANUARY 7, 2015, 6:13 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2015, 6:13 PM
BY STEPHANIE AKIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
A mail carrier from Ridgewood who accepted bribes to help members of a fraud ring steal more than $2 million in federal tax refunds was sentenced Wednesday to eight months of home confinement and three years of supervised release.
Lourdes Ortiz, 41, was among seven people charged in 2013 in connection with the scheme, which involved using fake identities to get tax refunds and then diverting the checks from postal routes. She was recruited by another mail carrier, Gloria Rivera, to intercept checks in Flushing, Queens, according to court documents. Rivera, of the Bronx, was also sentenced Wednesday.
Ortiz told U.S. Judge Faith S. Hochberg that she regretted her role in the scheme.
“I was just caught up in the moment, I guess,” she said in U.S. District Court in Newark.
Ortiz was granted a lighter sentence than the others charged because she was the lowest person in the conspiracy, Hochberg said from the bench. The sentence was also crafted to allow Ortiz to keep her job babysitting two children, Hochberg said.
The scheme, described in court documents as a classic type of fraud, started with co-conspirators who used fake security numbers and other personal information to file 1040 forms declaring fraudulent earnings and taxes withheld.
The co-conspirators, all of whom were not identified in court documents, bribed mail carriers, including Ortiz and Rivera, to get the resulting refund checks. The checks were eventually deposited in bank accounts controlled by people higher up in the conspiracy, and some of the money was used to buy cars and gamble at Atlantic City casinos.
The checks were cashed through bank accounts set up for newly-formed businesses incorporated by four of the other defendants in New Jersey and New York.
