Date: November 7, 2023 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov U.S. Attorney Dena J. King announced today that Carissa Eugenia Brown, of Charlotte, was sentenced to 54 months in prison for orchestrating a $1.9 million debt collection scheme. In addition to the prison term imposed, Brown was ordered to serve three years under court supervision after she is released from prison and to pay $1,708,920.60 as restitution. Donald "Trey" Eakins, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Review Service, Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI), Charlotte Field Office, and Tommy D. Coke, Inspector in Charge of the Atlanta Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), which oversees Charlotte, join U.S. Attorney King in making today's announcement. According to court documents and today's sentencing hearing, from 2015 to July 2020, Brown executed a fraudulent debt collection scheme that defrauded hundreds of victims located in North Carolina and elsewhere in the United States. Court records show that, during the relevant time period, Brown had registered three companies in North Carolina, which she used in furtherance of the scheme: Accredited Recovery Solutions, LLC (a/k/a Accredited Recovery Network); Elite Credit Adjusters, LLC (a/k/a Elite Credit Network); and Martin Recovery Group, LLC (a/k/a Martin Recovery, P.C. and the Law Office of Martin and Associates). According to court records, Brown operated her fraudulent debt collection scheme by contacting individuals who had been sued by various creditors for their outstanding debt and falsely represented that she was authorized to collect the debt on behalf of those creditors. Brown generally offered victims to "settle" the outstanding debt for a reduced amount, but only if the victims accepted the offer and paid the reduced amount in full, or began to make payments immediately to one of Brown's companies. As court records show, Brown often mailed victims official-looking documents, including a purported settlement agreement. Victims then made a lump-sum payment, or several payments, to Brown and her companies, believing that doing so would resolve their debt and outstanding court case, only to later learn that Brown was not authorized to collect the debt and they still owed the full debt to the actual creditor. To further induce victims to comply with the debt repayment demands, Brown sent correspondence to victims on letterhead that implied the communication was coming from a law firm, and left voicemails for victims falsely representing that she was calling from a law firm. In addition, Brown also employed threatening and harassing pressure tactics to fraudulently induce victims to pay her, including threatening to garnish victims' wages, to seize victims' bank accounts, or to file judgments in court if payment on the debt was not received. As a result of the false and fraudulent representations and threatening and harassing tactics used by Brown, court documents show that hundreds of individuals throughout the United States were fraudulently induced to pay Brown and her companies more than $1.9 million. This resulted in victims being placed in the untenable position of either having to pay their debts twice, or face the financial consequences for failing to pay the true creditor. Brown previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. She is currently in federal custody and will be transferred to the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility. In making today's announcement, U.S. Attorney King thanked IRS-CI and USPIS for handling the investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Graham Billings of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Charlotte prosecuted the case.
