Being made to self-destruct sounds like a more fitting punishment in view of the nature of the crime as well his being here without authorization in the first place.
According to Milwaukee CBS affiliate WDJT, 29-year-old Dimas Chavez-Pina fraudulently applied for individual tax ID numbers for citizens from Mexico that he stole from the IRS. He then filed fraudulent tax returns using those tax numbers. The scheme netted him a total of $1,058,827.69 in U.S. Treasury refund checks from 2011 to 2014.
The Journal-Sentinel reports:
The investigation began in 2014 when IRS agents staked out a check cashing store that was cashing fraudulently obtained refund checks. They spotted Chavez-Pina at the store and followed him to a house on Milwaukee’s south side.
Agents raided Chavez-Pina’s apartment in 2015 and found evidence of the fraud and also found two guns and ammunition. …
At the time of the raid, Chavez-Pina told agents he had been in the U.S. illegally since 2006 and had been arrested several times for domestic violence but never convicted. Online court records show someone sought a domestic violence restraining order in 2016 against Chavez-Pina last year but then did not come to court.
On Feb. 2, Chavez-Pina pleaded guilty to theft of government money and aggravated identity theft. As part of the plea arrangement, he agreed to be voluntarily deported from the U.S. and return to Mexico. He also agreed to pay restitution to the IRS.
Chavez-Pina will be sentenced on May 1 and faces a mandatory minimum two years in prison, though he could serve as many as 12 years.
