Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE COUNTY -- Nearly a dozen inmates at the Utah State Prison are looking at even more time behind bars for filing fake tax returns. The inmates netted thousands of dollars, overall.
The investigation started last spring, when investigators noticed something was wrong with certain tax returns.
Utah State Tax Commission spokesman Charlie Roberts says, "There were several discrepancies in the tax returns that raised a number of red flags with the tax commission, so we investigated and filed the charges."
Roberts says investigators were able to piece together what really happened.
"There were two prisoners at the state prison that got information from other inmates," he explains.
Roberts says Nicholas Farr and Robert Austin Jr. were the ringleaders, but the other inmates voluntarily gave their names, social security numbers and dates of birth. He says Farr and Austin essentially tricked a man in Davis County to file the 1040 forms and the inmates got refunds.
"[They received] a total of $26,000. The other prisoners, they received a smaller cut, between $1,000 and $5,000," Roberts says.
Being the ringleaders, Farr and Austin got bigger cuts. Roberts says it took the commission some time to finish its investigation because the amounts refunded to some of the inmates were so small, they took a backseat to bigger cases.
"In order for us to get the money back we had to file criminal charges," Roberts says. "So even though they were lesser amounts, we filed those charges in the last few weeks."
Roberts says all 12 men, including the man in Davis County, are facing communications fraud charges. The Davis County man might be able to work out a deal with prosecutors.
E-mail: pnelson@ksl.com
