The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they do grind.
On Tuesday, the first two of eight defendants in a criminal case were sentenced for stealing public funds and aggravated identity theft.
They were sentenced during a session in the U.S. District Court, Western District of Arkansas in El Dorado.
The case began in the spring of 2011, when El Dorado Police went to investigate a death at the residence of Shawn D. Carey. They found an open plastic bag containing documents listing names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and email addresses for at least 50 people.
Tuesday, Shawn D. Carey, 36, was sentenced to 38 months in the Bureau of Prisons, 14 months on tax fraud and 24 months identity theft and was sentenced to three years of supervision upon his release. It was also recommended that Carey be a candidate for intensive drug treatment programs while incarcerated. He will share restitution of $1,274,163.84 with the other seven defendants.
Also, Erica D. Browning, 36, was sentenced to one day on count one and 24 months on count 27 to run consecutively and she was given credit for pre-trial incarceration.
Upon release, she will serve three years of supervised probation, three years for count one, three for count eight and one year for count 27, to be served concurrently and pay restitution of $88,796.94. She pleaded guilty in March 2015.
According to a news release from the Western District court, Carey and Browning were originally indicted by a federal grand jury on Sept. 18, 2013. Browning pleaded guilty on March 20, 2015 and Carey pleaded guilty on June 12, 2015.
The remaining six defendants have each pleaded guilty and will be sentenced at a later date.
Between January 2009 and November 2011, Carey and other co-conspirators filed at least 665 fraudulent tax returns requesting more than $2,300,000 in refunds.
In December, Gregory A. Taylor, 51, of Crossett pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States with respect to claims. Taylor was alleged to have filed the tax returns. He and seven others were indicted June 24, 2015 by a Federal Grand Jury. They were charged with tax fraud and identity theft.
Other defendants were Venus M. Ford, 34; Clarrise Carey, 34; Whitney M. Charles, 36; Ecko Scott, 35 and Sanjuana N. Aaron, 35.
The eight used other people’s names and Social Security numbers, including those of prison inmates, homeless individuals and the names of those not required to file taxes. Some were used without permission and others sold their identification to one of the eight.
Over 2,000 personal identifiers were discovered. Refunds were deposited into accounts of individuals who were then instructed to withdraw the funds and give it to one of the above.
The fraud began with the 2009 tax filing season and continued through 2011, according to News-Times files. The investigation involved the U.S. Secret Service, the El Dorado Police Department and the Crossett Police Department.