A former Social Security Administration employee was indicted on March 2 on charges that she stole the identities of 41 people from agency records and sold them in a fake tax return scam.
Department of Justice officials said that Sharon Coffee-Dean was indicted on charges of aggravated identity theft, misusing stolen social security numbers, fraudulent activity in connection with identification documents and conspiring to defraud the SSA for her role in the scheme.
Two other individuals, Kishore Jattan and Michael Bratton, were also indicted on identity theft charges by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York.
The indictment alleges that from December 2011 to January 2012, Coffee-Dean stole 41 identities from SSA records and sold them to individuals looking to file fraudulent tax returns.
Jattan is alleged to have stolen and sold student identities from packages he delivered to a university in New York City as a messenger from April to June 2012, while Bratton is charged with buying the stolen identities from January 2011 to June 2012. According to Federalpay.org, Coffee Dean was a GS-8 contact representative for the SSA in Queens, NY.
Prosecutors said she faces five years in prison on the conspiracy charge; five years for fraud and related activity in connection with means of identification; 10 years for the misuse of a Social Security number as an SSA employee; and a mandatory minimum of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft, in addition to possible restitution and monetary penalties.
