Family that Commits Identity Theft Together Goes to Prison Together

Mary Young and her husband, Christian Young, and her son, Octavious Reeves, have been sentenced to prison for their involvement in a stolen identity refund fraud scheme.

Mary Young was sentenced to serve 87 months in prison, Christian Young was sentenced to serve 70 months in prison, and Octavious Reeves was sentenced to serve 51 months in prison. 

Reeves pleaded guilty to conspiracy and aggravated identity theft and the Youngs pleaded guilty several months later to conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.  All three defendants’ prison sentences will be followed by three years of supervised release. 

Mary and Christian Young each were ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $415,070, and Reeves was ordered to pay $42,257 in restitution.

According to court documents, between January 2010 and June 2012, the trio and others obtained stolen identities from individuals and used this information to file false tax returns.  The government asserted that the false tax returns were filed from the Youngs’ residence and the conspirators directed the false tax refunds to prepaid debit cards in the names of the identity theft victims. According to the government, both Youngs and Reeves used the prepaid debit cards to withdraw the fraudulent proceeds.  In total, the co-conspirators received over $400,000 in fraudulent tax refunds, the government said. 

Contact the author at smeyerow@optonline.net. 

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