BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Eight individuals were charged this morning in a scheme orchestrated by a state prison inmate with a federal income tax fraud that deposited U.S. Treasury checks in accounts at Redstone FCU and Regions Bank, then disbursed the proceeds to conspirators from the credit union account.
The leader of the conspiracy, Shermaine “Shade” German, 56, is charged with orchestrating the far-reaching tax fraud from Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, where he obtained the names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of other people, often fellow inmates, including prisoners on death row and those serving sentences of life without parole. He used their information to create false income tax returns that contained fabricated amounts of tax withholdings, according to a federal indictment. German also created false power of attorney forms, which he mailed out of the prison along with the false income tax returns, according to the indictment.
Other members of the conspiracy notarized the power of attorney forms and used them to cash or deposit income tax refund checks received as part of the scheme with the credit union or bank, according to the indictment.
One of the alleged conspirators, Marlo Miller, 46, deposited the Treasury checks in Huntsville-based Redstone FCU and Regions Bank, then wired the proceeds to others involved in the scheme from her credit union account, the indictment charges.
Six of seven people charged in the conspiracy with German were arrested today in Huntsville, Montgomery, Eufaula, and Mobile.
