Modesto Mom Admits To Teaming Up Death Row Son To Rip Off Stimulus Checks
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- A 51-year-old Modesto woman pleaded guilty Friday to charges connected to a scheme with her son, who is incarcerated on San Quentin's Death Row, to rip off thousands of dollars in federal stimulus check payments.
United States Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds said that Sheila Denise Dunlap could be facing more than 20 years in federal prison at her June 24th sentencing on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
In her plea agreement, Dunlap admitted that she conspired from March 2020 through July 2020 with her son to obtain the personal identifiable information of others and to use that PII to apply for EIP funds.
The EIP program was part of the CARES Act, a federal relief bill signed into law on March 27, 2020, to address the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the provision, individuals who made less than $99,000 on their 2019 tax returns and those whose income was sufficiently so low that a tax return filing was not required were eligible for as much as $1,200 per adult and $500 for a qualifying child in EIP payments.
Dunlap admitted in her plea agreement that her son, identified only by the initials D.W., sent her the personal identifiable information of his fellow prisoners along with those of other individuals whom they suspected might qualify as non-filers of 2018 or 2019 income tax returns.
She used those identities to file multiple fraudulent claims through the Internal Revenue Service's online portal. In each of the applications, Dunlap listed her own Bank of America account to receive the payments.
Dunlap said her son and another unnamed individual emailed her a spreadsheet containing the identifications of 9,043 individuals. Her son told Dunlap to file the fraudulent EIP claims by first using the identities of the youngest adults listed.
She used those identities to file 121 EIP claims. In total, Dunlap filed claims for $145,200 in EIP payments.
