Former social worker sentenced for tax fraud
A former social worker from West Chester who authorities said helped people cheat on their taxes by using information taken from foster children overseen by a Catholic organization has been sentenced to federal prison.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Harvey Bartle III sentenced Gebah Kamara, 50, to 30 months’ imprisonment for conspiring to defraud the IRS, aiding and abetting the preparation of false federal income tax returns, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
The charges arose from the Kamara’s participation in a conspiracy to file false federal income tax returns, which generated large fraudulent refunds. A former social worker, Kamara stole the personal identity information of foster children from his employer, and sold that information to tax preparers in Philadelphia to use as fraudulent dependents on income tax returns, said acting U.S. Attorney Louis D. Lappen in a press release. He had pleaded guilty in 2014.
According to the release, from 2007 through approximately October 2011, Kamara was employed as a social worker with Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia. During the course of his employment, he had access to the names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers of foster children and members of the children’s foster families. Beginning in or about 2008, the defendant sold the personal identity information of children for use as false dependents on income tax returns to his codefendants, who operated Medmans Financial Services, a tax preparation business. Kamara’s codefendants used the children’s personal identity information to create fraudulent dependents on income tax returns, which they prepared for clients and filed with the IRS. By including the false dependents on tax returns, the tax preparers falsely claimed on behalf of their clients a tax exemption for each dependent, and the child tax credit, and often claimed a tax credit for child, dependent care expenses, and the earned income tax credit. These false items generated large fraudulent tax refunds, some in excess of $9,000 per return.