San Antonio Man Sentenced To Federal Prison For Aggravated Identity Theft

In San Antonio today, 69-year-old Daniel Henry Lopez was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison for stealing identification information of individuals he met at Veterans Affairs rehabilitation facilities and using that information to obtain credit cards and fraudulent tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service announced U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman, U.S. Secret Service Acting Special Agent in Charge James Bass, IRS-Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Steve McCollough and Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw.

In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez ordered that Lopez pay restitution in the amount of $84,741 and be placed under supervised release for a period of three years after completing his prison term.

On October 10, 2013, Lopez pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.  By pleading guilty, Lopez admitted that from January 2012 to April 2013, he devised a scheme to steal means of identification including names, dates of birth and social security numbers from unsuspecting victims.  Lopez further admitted that he used that information to create fraudulent income tax returns which, in turn, generated approximately $78,000 for Lopez in false tax refunds.  Lopez also created fraudulent documents that he used to open various bank accounts.  As a result of his scheme, Lopez caused over $6,000 in losses to financial institutions due to overdrawn checks and other charges.

SAC Steve McCollough noted that the IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agents are aggressively pursuing those who steal others’ identities in order to file false returns.  “The IRS is taking additional steps this tax season to further prevent, detect and resolve identity theft cases as soon as possible,” he stated.

This case resulted from an investigation by the U.S. Secret Service, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation and the Texas Department of Public Safety.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hulings prosecuted this case on behalf of the Government.