Chicago woman Katrina Pierce accused of targeting murder victims in fraud scheme to get tax refunds, stimulus payments

In accordance with the feds, a 7-year-old boy who was shot and killed in Humboldt Park in 2015 is without doubt one of the alleged victims. For the household of Amari Brown, it is reopened previous wounds.

“Why would somebody wish to do that?” stated Andrina Hailey, Amari’s aunt. “It’s totally delicate to us, and we simply suppose it is disgusting.”

Amari is amongst dozens of younger Chicago homicide victims whose identities had been allegedly stolen by a South Facet girl.

In a federal grievance, authorities say Katrina Pierce used these stolen identities to fraudulently accumulate hundreds of {dollars} in tax refunds and COVID-19 reduction funds and stimulus funds.

Authorities say Pierce stole these identities by improperly acquiring demise data. She allegedly focused youthful capturing victims, between the ages of two and 22, due to their clear credit score historical past.

Within the case of Amari, authorities say Pierce falsely claimed him as a depending on a tax return, permitting her to gather a refund of greater than $4,400.

“It is fallacious,” Hailey stated. “It is morally fallacious. It is simply fallacious.”

Authorities say Pierce stole her victims’ info from county demise data by falsely claiming to be a relative on request varieties, a felony in itself.

Officers had been tipped off after discovering she made a number of requests for various folks in a single day.

At a house she listed as a return deal with, investigators discovered handwritten notes itemizing her victims and the way they had been murdered. However why did not the IRS instantly know she was utilizing info from useless folks?

“Id theft may be very difficult, very tough for authorities to detect as a result of the methods merely aren’t in place, a minimum of not throughout all the federal forms or state forms to proactively search for situations of id theft,” ABC7 Authorized Analyst Gil Soffer stated.

Officers stated Pierce has a couple of dozen earlier convictions for fraud or theft and was launched just a few years in the past after serving time in federal jail.