Suwanee woman gets 3 years in prison for duping IRS

ATLANTA - A Suwanee woman who received a tax refund she wasn't entitled to, and then hid the money from the IRS, will spend three years in jail for the crime.

Rose Roye, 64, was sentenced Wednesday by United States District Judge Charles A. Pannell, Jr., according to United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates for the Northern District of Georgia.

"This defendant claimed and received a large tax refund to which she wasn't entitled," said Yates. "Then, instead of paying it back, she hid the money and sent a blizzard of abusive, false and fictitious documents to the IRS."

Roye was sentenced to serve three years in federal prison and pay restitution of $277,671.44 for corruptly interfering with the administration of the internal revenue laws. A jury convicted Roye of the offense on June 11, 2012, after a six-day trial.

Yates said Roye, who had previously obtained an improper tax refund of over $347,000 from the IRS, moved that money around in a series of bank transactions designed to hamper the IRS's efforts to get it back. For instance, according to court testimony, on the next business day after the improper refund was deposited into her bank account, Roye withdrew $300,000 of the funds, which she later deposited into accounts in the names of entities she had set up ahead of time. Similarly, on May 14, 2009, immediately after an IRS Revenue Officer made an unannounced visit to her home and demanded that Roye repay the large debt she owed to the IRS from her improper return, Roye raced to the bank and withdrew another $170,000 from two bank accounts she controlled.

Roye also sent numerous documents to the IRS, including worthless and fictitious bonds, in an effort to trick the IRS into forgiving her debt, and harassing correspondence to the IRS Revenue Officer assigned to her case.

The evidence at trial showed that Roye's abusive conduct toward government officials continued even after she knew she was under criminal investigation, Yates said.

In addition to the corrupt interference charge, Roye had been charged with two counts of filing false claims. The jury acquitted Roye of the two false claim counts.