A Chula Vista woman who stole $164,194 from the Internal Revenue Service after cashing fraudulent tax refund checks was sentenced Monday to 13 months in federal prison.
Cecilia Isabel Hernandez, 46, was ordered to pay $164,194 back to the IRS by U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Battaglia. She could have received 10 years in prison.
The judge exceeded the prosecutor’s recommended sentence of one year by one month. Her attorney, Mary Franklin, asked for a 5-month sentence in custody with five months of house arrest.
Hernandez said she used the money to pay $33,000 in cash for a Chrysler 300, and $40,000 for a Quinceanera for her daughter in 2014, according to a tape recorded interview she had with an IRS special agent on July 22, 2015.
Hernandez wrote $525,743 in bad checks to the IRS in 2011, 2013, and 2014, according to the charges. She wrote those checks on closed bank accounts and she did so deliberately to trigger a fraudulent return.
The checks she wrote were for more than what she owed in taxes, so the IRS sent her refund checks before the agency realized her checks bounced after they were eventually deposited.
Hernandez admitted she knew the checks she wrote were on closed bank accounts. She said she had already spent the tax refunds when the agency asked her to pay it back. She pleaded guilty March 9 to theft of U.S. money.
