Columbus Man Pleads Guilty to Filing False Tax Returns While in Federal Prison

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Malek B. Aliane, 34, previously of Columbus, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to mail fraud and presenting false claims to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Guy A. Ficco, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Cincinnati Field Office, James Vanderberg, U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, and Assistant Inspector in Charge Christopher White of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s (USPIS) Cincinnati Field Office, announced the plea entered into today before U.S. District Judge Gregory L. Frost.

According to court documents, from 2013 through 2015, while in federal prison or on supervised release, Aliane filed false personal forms and tax returns with the IRS. He filed six returned in total which claimed false tax refunds through fraudulent federal income tax withholdings. Aliane created fictitious W-2 and 1099 forms setting forth large federal tax withholding amounts.

In 2013 and 2014, while in prison, Aliane mailed paper returns to the IRS. In 2015, while on supervised release, he electronically filed the returns.

Three false Forms 1040 and/or Forms 1040X for the tax years 2012, 2013 and 2014 claimed a total of $94,133.87 in bogus refunds. The other three were false Forms 1120 for Aliane’s business, MB Aliane Real Estate, LLC, for the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 claiming $422,185.00 in false refunds. 

Also, from February 1, 2015, through June 23, 2015, the defendant used personal identification information of other individuals in order to file false, fictitious and fraudulent unemployment insurance (UI) applications with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) upon the purported employer account of JLB Financial Group.

On May 12, 2015, Defendant Aliane registered the fictitious employer account of JLB Financial Group with the ODJFS.  This employer account was registered with backdated liability dates and no contributions having been paid.  Seven individuals were listed as employees of JLB Financial Group with wages from the first quarter of 2014 through the first quarter of 2015; however, those seven individual employees, all were incarcerated before and during the aforementioned wage period. None of them ever actually worked for JLB. Seven individual UI claims were filed on the business account, and the government contends that the potential unemployment benefits to be paid on those claims totals $77,168

Aliane faces a potential maximum sentence of 20 years for mail fraud and five years for presenting false claims to the IRS.

U.S. Attorney Stewart commended the cooperative investigation by the IRS-CI, Department of Labor and USPIS, as well as Assistant United States Attorney Daniel Brown, who is representing the United States in this case.