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Joseph Kenny Batts, 50, of Elkridge, MD went to trial after four associates pleaded guilty in the federal conspiracy case. He was convicted of conspiring to defraud the United States and five counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false federal income tax returns.
Batts and co-conspirator Damien Askew operated Tax Pro’s, a tax return preparation and payroll business in West Orange for nearly six years, federal authorities said.
In order to boost their business, they conspired with co-defendants Tony Russell, Angelo K. Thompson and Rudolph Sanders to generate tax refunds their clients weren’t entitled to by lying on returns, they said.
This included “fabricating and inflating credits for education and child care; deductions, such as charitable contributions and unreimbursed employee expenses; and Schedule C business losses,” U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
They crew also used fraudulent IRS Forms 1098-T to support false education credits that were claimed for their clients, he said.
Batts also used the Paid Taxpayer Identification Number (PTIN) of his conspirator tax preparers when preparing tax returns to conceal his identity as the actual tax return preparer – “due to, among other things, his prior tax fraud conviction,” Carpenito said.
Batts had previously been convicted of stealing more than $17,000 from clients while working from a Union Township office.
Thompson, Askew, Sanders and Russell have previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the scheme and await sentencing.
U.S. District Judge Michael A. Shipp scheduled Batts’s sentencing on Jan. 16, 2020.
U.S. Attorney Carpenito credited special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation with assembling the case, handled for the government by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Cari Fais and Jihee G. Suh of his Newark office.
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