Judy Grace Sellers was lost but has been found! Took ten years to find her but who’s judging? Sellers was a consummate fraudster and wasn’t going to be an easy fraudster to find anyway. It all started in 2008 when Sellers operated a website called commercialredemption.com in which she promoted the use of the IRS form 1099-OID to commit tax fraud. The proper use of the 1099-OID form is for companies such as brokers to report to the IRS income received by the purchaser of a discounted security. But fraudsters rarely like to be proper. As part of this scheme, Sellers fraudulently submitted the 1099-OID forms reporting to the IRS her clients’ debts as income. Including mortgages, student loans, credit card debts, and court judgments in the totals.
After submitting the fraudulent 1099-OID forms, Sellers’s co-conspirators would prepare and submit fraudulent tax returns seeking massive refund. Half a million-dollar refunds. All these refunds were based on non-existent 1099-OID “income” and withholdings. Seller’s scheme resulted in the submission of at least twenty two returns requesting fraudulent refunds totaling at least $3.4 million from the IRS.
Sellers was indicted for tax fraud and in January of 2015 she was placed on house arrest. She got booted up with a GPS ankle monitor pending trial to keep Sellers in place. But before her trial, in May of 2015, Sellers was granted permission by her probation officer to leave her home to get her hair done in preparation for her pretrial hearing. A girl’s got to look good! However, instead of getting her roots touched up, Sellers cut off her GPS ankle monitor, flung it on the side of the highway, and absconded. Hiding in plain sight in New Mexico, for eight and a half years.
There is not running this time for Sellers. She was found guilty on March 2, 2024, and is waiting in prison for her sentence.
Great job by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Florida woman convicted in $3.4M tax fraud scheme after being on the run for 8 years: DOJ” published by Fox 35 Orlando on March 2, 2024
A Florida woman who was indicted nearly 10 years ago was convicted of tax fraud after authorities found her in New Mexico, according to the Department of Justice.
Judy Grace Sellers is facing up to 23 years in federal prison after she promoted the improper use of IRS form 1099-OID to commit tax fraud, the DOJ said.
Sellers operated a website where she “perpetuated the false premise that the U.S Treasury maintains secret accounts attributed to every U.S. citizen that can be drawn on by filing a series of bogus documents with the U.S. Treasury and other government entities.”
