December 01, 2015
The operator of a day care in Mullica Hill, New Jersey, was sentenced Tuesday for scamming the IRS out of over $28,000.
The United State's Attorney's office announced that Deborah Cellucci, 45, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for falsifying records when the IRS came to collect taxes owed by Cellucci's day care business.
According to a release sent by the attorney's office, Bellucci's problems began in 2013, after she fell behind on her business taxes. At that time, the release notes, an IRS revenue agent worked out a payment plan with Bellucci and send a notice that the IRS would levy subsidies to Cellucci’s day care under the subsidized child care program.
That levy, notes the release, directed that the $28,103.20 subsidy slated for the day care be paid to the IRS.
However, the attorney's office said in June 2013, Cellucci faxed a false levy release from her home in New Jersey to the Philadelphia offices of the agency in charge of paying the day care subsidy funds.
As a result of the false levy release, the attorney's office says a check for $28,103.20 that the agency had written to the U.S. Treasury was canceled, and a new check in the same amount was made out to the day care.
Cellucci endorsed the check, and, the attorney's office says she deposited the proceeds directly into her business account.
In today's release, the attorney's office said that United States District Judge Berle M. Schiller also ordered the defendant to pay $28,103.20 in restitution, and to serve a three-year period of probation.
