Tax preparer Kertena Seabrook has been sentenced to 27 months in prison and ordered to pay $171,152 in restitution after she was convicted on 20 counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns.
Seabrook operated Future Star Digatech, a tax prep and printing business in Brooklyn. Prosecutors accused her of claiming fraudulent and inflated deductions on taxpayers Schedule A forms for charitable, medical, dental and job expenses for 17 taxpayers from 2004-2006, including nearly $40,000 for one taxpayer, according to documents provided by the Internal Revenue Services Criminal Investigation Division. Her attorney had argued that the IRS audits were inadmissible as hearsay evidence, but declined to comment on the case.
Prosecutors claimed that the tax returns she prepared included $538,140 in false deductions, resulting in a tax loss to the federal government of $187,032. She was indicted on 43 counts in February 2009 and convicted of the 20 counts presented to the jury in January 2010. Seabrook has been ordered to surrender to authorities on Jan. 19, 2011 to begin her prison sentence.
