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August 31, 2020

New York Freelance Information Broker Pleads Guilty for Impersonating Taxpayers to Illegally Obtain Federal Tax Information from the IRS

On June 29, 2020, in the Northern District of New York, Stephen Mockler pled guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and misuse of Social Security Numbers (SSN), in connection with a for-profit scheme he devised to illegally obtain confidential tax information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

According to the court documents, from approximately August 2017 through January 2018, Mockler worked as a freelance information broker from his residences in New York. In this capacity, private investigative agencies paid Mockler to obtain confidential Federal tax information, including Federal Employer Identification Numbers and wage histories.

As part of the scheme, Mockler called the IRS more than 1,500 times, impersonating various taxpayers using personal identifying information provided to him by the private investigative firms and fraudulently causing the IRS to release confidential Federal tax information to him. Mockler then provided the fraudulently obtained confidential Federal tax information to the private investigative agencies, who passed it on to their clients.

When Mockler engaged in the foregoing activities, he knew that the taxpayers whose SSNs and other personal identifying information he used had not authorized the release of their confidential Federal tax information, or the confidential Federal tax information of their businesses, to him. Mockler also knew that the taxpayers did not authorize him to impersonate them or to use their SSNs.

Mockler faces a maximum fine of $250,000 per count. In addition, he faces a maximum of 20 years' imprisonment, per count, for his wire fraud and related offenses; a mandatory minimum sentence of two years' imprisonment, per count, for his aggravated identity theft offenses; and a maximum of five years' imprisonment, per count, for his misuse of SSN offenses. Mockler also may be required to serve a period of supervised release of up to three years following imprisonment.

    Source:  The facts in this case narrative come from the following publicly available documents: N.D.N.Y., Plea Agr., filed Jun. 29, 2020 and N.D.N.Y., Crim. Info., filed Jun. 29, 2020.