Placerville couple indicted, face federal charges of filing false tax return and liens

A Placerville couple was arrested Tuesday and face criminal charges after federal investigators said they defrauded the government by filing false tax returns and false liens against IRS employees.

Charles and Victoria Tingler face conspiracy and other charges. According to an indictment, the Tinglers and Teresa Marie Marty, are charged with filing liens against the property of three IRS employees and filing liens of at least $84 million against the property of two U.S. Justice Department attorneys, according to a news release.

The superseding indictment states the Tinglers were clients of Marty and Advanced Financial Services (AFS), who filed a false tax return in 2008 fraudulently claiming a refund of $358,415. The indictment charges the Tinglers, as well as Marty, with filing this tax return. When the IRS tried to collect the fraudulently obtained refund, Charles Tingler and Victoria Tingler filed multiple liens against the IRS revenue officer who was handling their collection case.

According to court documents, Marty and the Tinglers are also charged with multiple counts of unlawfully using the social security numbers of the government employees in the liens they filed with the California Secretary of State.

The indictment charges Marty, Charles Tingler and AFS office manager Pamela Harris, of Placerville, with participating in a conspiracy to defraud the IRS. The indictment alleges that as part of the conspiracy, Harris and Marty engaged a commercial collection agency to collect one of the three false liens that Charles Tingler had filed, one of which was for $500,000.

Marty, Harris, and Marty’s daughter-in-law, Rebecca Bandera-Marty, had previously been indicted in June 2013, for a large-scale tax-fraud scheme. Those charges are included in this superseding indictment. According to the superseding indictment, in 2008 and 2009, Marty, Bandera-Marty, and Harris conspired to file at least 250 false individual federal income tax returns on behalf of individuals who resided in 26 states, and which claimed more than $60 million in false federal income tax refunds.

If convicted, the defendants face up to five years in prison for the conspiracy charge as well as each charge of filing a false claim and unlawfully disclosing a social security number. Each retaliatory lien count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Any sentence, however, would be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables. The charges are only allegations; the defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

This case is the product of an investigation by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and by IRS-Criminal Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Justice Department Tax Division Trial Attorney Ignacio Perez de la Cruz and Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew D. Segal in the Eastern District of California.