Texan admits to conspiring with Little Rock woman, filing fraudulent tax returns

Co-defendant still set for trial in case

A Texarkana, Texas, man admitted Tuesday that he conspired with a Little Rock woman to defraud the Internal Revenue Service of about a half million dollars from October 2010 through March 2012 by filing tax returns on behalf of nonexistent employees.

U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes accepted a guilty plea from Eric G. Hicks, 44, to the two charges he would have faced in a Dec. 4 jury trial: conspiracy to file false claims against the United States and submitting false and fraudulent claims.

The trial date remains set for Hicks' co-defendant, Lakeshia D. Calvin, 35, a former professional tax preparer in Little Rock who faces the same charges. Hicks said Tuesday that he was in an "open relationship" with Calvin at the time and lived at her home for about two months.

Hicks and Calvin were indicted by a federal grand jury in Little Rock on Sept. 7, 2016, but the indictment wasn't unsealed until April 13 of this year, three days after Hicks was arrested in Miami on a warrant issued out of the Eastern District of Arkansas.

According to the indictment and a statement that Assistant U.S. Attorney Angela Jegley read aloud in court Tuesday, the sophisticated scheme resulted in the filing of 104 fraudulent claims for tax refunds that ranged in amounts from $2,247 to $10,024. The claims were filed on behalf of people whom Hicks and Calvin claimed had been employed by fictitious businesses that they or their "associates" had created.

The indictment says the defendants also prepared and filed fraudulent tax returns in their own names, as though they had been employed by business entities that actually didn't employ them, with Hicks falsely claiming he was due $3,930 and Calvin falsely claiming she was due $10,474.

Investigators obtained much of their evidence by listening to recorded calls that Hicks placed to Calvin between Nov. 18, 2011 and Feb. 15, 2012, while he was in jail, Jegley told the judge.

She said that in the recorded calls, Hicks gave Calvin detailed instructions for setting up limited liability companies, obtaining federal identifiers and establishing business bank accounts. She said he was recorded telling Calvin how to obtain identities to use in the tax returns and then discussing specific identities, including those that "didn't go through" the previous year.

During the calls, Jegley said, Hicks instructed Calvin to obtain a laptop computer from a friend. Once Calvin had the computer, Hicks directed her to websites and online resources, and told her how to transfer the tax-refund money from the accounts it was deposited into, into other accounts and then onto prepaid cards where it could be used, Jegley said.

About $555,000 is believed to have been stolen through the scheme.

Over the course of several conversations, the prosecutor said, "He gave her step-by-step instructions for setting up businesses online," and they discussed how to split the money they obtained through the scheme.

During a search that federal agents later conducted at Hicks' home, they found 63 names and Social Security numbers -- at least 23 of which had been used to file false tax-refund requests, Jegley said.

Hicks was represented during the plea hearing by attorney Mark J. O'Brien of Tampa, Fla., who told the judge that although the government had offered Hicks a plea agreement, he opted to plead guilty to the charges in the indictment instead.

Holmes told Hicks that a sentencing date would be set after the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services office prepares a pre-sentence report for the court.

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Metro on 11/22/2017

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