Army sergeant avoids prison in online scheme involving tax returns

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

An Army sergeant from Washington state won’t have go to prison for using stolen UPMC identifications to file bogus tax returns as part of a case stemming from a hack of the medical giant’s computers in 2014.

U.S. District Judge Mark Hornak on Thursday said Justin Tollefson, 27, a staff sergeant who joined the Army two weeks after high school and served two tours in Afghanistan, has led an otherwise law-abiding life.

He gave him three years of probation instead of the prison term that the government had sought as a warning to other “hackers of the world lurking on the dark web,” as Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Melucci put it.

Judge Hornak granted a defense request for leniency.

“If there is an example of aberrant behavior, this is it,” he said. “I think it highly unlikely that you will do anything like this again.”

For his part, Tollefson and his lawyer said he lost his way after he learned that his pregnant wife was having an affair while he served in Afghanistan. Although they remain together and have two children, he said that knowledge drove him to crime.

He entered an encrypted online marketplace for stolen data and bought the UPMC identifications, then used them to carry out what the IRS calls a SIRF — stolen identity refund fraud. The increasingly common crime is among the top priorities of the agency’s criminal division.

“I sincerely apologize for my conduct,” Tollefson said. “I was in a dark place at the time.”

Mr. Melucci wanted the judge to send a message that SIRF cases are serious. He said cybercriminals read news accounts of penalties imposed for the crimes, and probation won’t deter anyone.

“Hackers follow this stuff,” he said.

The judge said, however, that the good outweighed the bad in Tollefson’s case. He didn’t profit from the scheme or recruit anyone else, as often happens in SIRF cases, he has no criminal history and he will likely be bounced out of the Army.

“You will be a federal felon as longas you live,” the judge told him.

Tollefson, a sergeant at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma,