A Florida man has pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. Government for his part in a scheme to submit false claims for tax refunds.
Part of that scheme involved recruiting several other people, including three from the Lowcountry, one of whom is serving a year in federal prison for his participation.
According to a press release issued by U.S. Attorney William N. Nettles, U.S. District Court Judge Terry L. Wooten sentenced Thomas J. Dalton, 51, originally of Hialeah, Florida, to ten years in federal prison to be served after Dalton finishes a prison sentence that he is currently serving. Dalton must also repay $356,320 to the United States.
Nettles said Dalton pleaded guilty in February, admitting that he enlisted several other people into a scheme to obtain fraudulent income tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service.  Three other members of the conspiracy have already been sentenced for their roles in the case. They are Randall Lewis Smith, 50, of Summerville; Georgia M. Adams, 55, of Harleyville; and Misha Danyell Cleckley, 34, of Orangeburg.  Cleckley and Adams were sentenced to five years probation and Smith received a prison sentence of one year and one day, Nettles said.
By enlisting these defendants as well as other people, several of whom were inmates with Dalton at federal prison facilities, Dalton caused the filing of over 160 fraudulent tax returns seeking approximately $1.43 million from which the IRS paid over $415,000 in refunds, Nettles said. During his guilty plea and sentencing, Dalton admitted that he devised this scheme while he was serving a 105-month federal prison that he received for a 2003 conviction for credit card fraud.  During his sentencing hearing on the tax fraud case, Dalton admitted that he first started his tax scheme while serving yet another federal sentence for a 1998 credit card fraud conviction.