He bilked $600,000 from the IRS by automating a system for tax refund fraud, feds say
The 44-year-old owner of an IT business in Georgia is going to prison after being accused of pilfering more than $600,000 in federal tax refunds using a computer program he created.
Kevin Kirton, of Dallas, Georgia, was sentenced on March 14 to six years and nine months behind bars after he pleaded guilty to charges of access device fraud and aggravated identity theft last year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia said in a news release. Prosecutors said the charges stem from Kirton’s elaborate scheme to defraud the Internal Revenue Service involving a computer program he built and stolen personal information.
“The computer program stored stolen identities and could be used to submit fraudulent tax returns in the names of stolen identities to the IRS, effectively automating stolen identity tax refund fraud,” the government said.
Kirton has remained in jail since his bond was revoked in December 2020 and could not be reached for comment.
A defense attorney representing him told McClatchy News on March 21 that he has “accepted responsibility for his role in this offense and expressed to the court his remorse and readiness to make restitution.”
“Kirton created technical ‘solutions’ to conduct his own fraud schemes and help others commit fraud,” U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine said in the release. “Every thief believes they have developed a new undetectable method to steal. As in this case, they will be caught, prosecuted, and face years in federal prison to contemplate their failed endeavor.”
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Kirton’s program could be accessed remotely using the internet. Once a bogus tax return was prepared and submitted, the refunds were reportedly issued using prepaid debit cards.
Kirton hid his IP address whenever he accessed the program, prosecutors said, making it difficult for the IRS to trace a tax return back to “one particular origination point.”
“Kirton also set up a bootleg phone system that he believed would not be susceptible to wiretaps to communicate with other criminals,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Investigators searched Kirton’s home in January 2014, where they reportedly found more than 500 prepaid debit cards issued in the names of various identity theft victims. Prosecutors said the debit cards were linked to fraudulent federal income tax filings that sought more than $900,000 in refunds.
The IRS ultimately paid about $600,000 of those refunds, the government said.
According to the news release, Kirton was also found in possession of a booklet titled “Income and Withholding Verification Processes are Resulting in the Issuance of Potentially Fraudulent Tax Refunds.”
A grand jury indicted him in January 2019 and he was released on bond, court filings show.
But in the intervening months, prosecutors said Kirton made “veiled threats” in phone conversations with a man at a Georgia jail regarding a witness in his case. He was reportedly heard threatening to go to the news media with an exposé about the witness if he was “still snitching,” court filings state.
“He’s going to act the way he’s going to act,” Kirton is accused of saying. “And I’m not about slandering nobody, but Lord knows if I needed a headline, it would be a headline.”
Prosecutors brought the recorded phone conversations and jail logs to a grand jury, who returned a superseding indictment in January 2020 to add charges of witness tampering and obstruction of justice. A judge subsequently revoked Kirton’s bond and sent him back to jail, saying he posed a danger to the community.
He took a plea deal in June 2021.
The government consented to a reduction of his prison sentence because Kirton reportedly offered credible tips in another case.
Kirton’s defense attorneyhad asked for a larger reduction because he served as a confidential informant for nearly two years before he was indicted.
She said Kirton also ran a successful IT business with a “roster of loyal clients.”
“Mr. Kirton has proven himself capable of being a functioning member of society,” his attorney said in sentencing documents. “A sentence that allows him to reintegrate into society in a reasonable amount of time and earn money so that he may make substantial payments towards restitution is beneficial for all parties.”
However, prosecutors told the judge his alleged crimes were “highly sophisticated in both execution and concealment.”
The judge ultimately sided with the government and sentenced Kirton to 81 months in prison with three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $629,551 in restitution.
This story was originally published March 21, 2022 at 1:11 PM with the headline "He bilked $600,000 from the IRS by automating a system for tax refund fraud, feds say."
