Date: Jan. 19, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov SCRANTON — The United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Leidi M. Paulino, owner of LP Multiservices, a tax preparation business located in Freeland, PA, was sentenced on Jan. 19, 2024, by United States District Judge Julia K. Munley, to 24 months' imprisonment, to be followed by a one-year term of supervised release, for the offense of aiding and assisting in the filing of false tax returns claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars in unearned education credits. According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, over the course of 2019 and 2020, Paulino assisted hundreds of clients in preparing and filing false tax returns that were materially false in that they sought on the clients' behalf certain education tax credits, including the American opportunity tax credit, to which the clients were not entitled. Indeed, the vast majority of Paulino's clients were not enrolled in college at all. Paulino's conduct resulted in hundreds of thousand dollars of loss to the government. At her sentencing, Paulino was ordered to pay restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the amount of $888,377.00. This case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation (CI). Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffery St John prosecuted the case. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
