Accountant pleads to federal fraud charges

ANCHORAGE — An accountant with offices in Anchorage and Wasilla pleaded guilty Monday to defrauding more than $700,000 from her clients and family members.

Frances Yvonne Rowland, 43, of Anchorage, pleaded to obstructing the Internal Revenue Service, credit card fraud and aggravated identify theft. Federal officials say Rowland faces up to 15 years in prison.

Federal officials say Rowland ran a number of businesses between 2005 and 2008, including Carter and Associates LLC, Carter Organization LLC, Carter financial Group LLC and Carter Tax Inc. The press release announcing her plea doesn’t say, and a cursory review of documents filed in the case didn’t turn up, which of her businesses were Wasilla-based and which were Anchorage-based.

The press release says Rowland would prepare her clients’ taxes, then have them write checks to pay the taxes made out to her, with the understanding that Rowland would turn the money around and send it to the feds.

“Rather than paying her clients’ monies to the IRS, Rowland instead transferred the funds to accounts that she controlled and used the money to pay business and personal expenses. These expenses included personal travel, home mortgage payments, payments toward other clients’ tax liabilities and payments of court-ordered restitution,” according to the press release.

According to court filings, the amount of money taken from individual clients often ranged into multiple tens of thousands of dollars. In one instance in 2005, Rowland allegedly took a $68,600 payment from a client then put the bulk of those funds into her own account the next day and spent it on business and personal expenses and to pay “restitution ordered by the Alaska Superior Court.”

Another client, identified in court filings by a set of initials, gave Rowland two $60,000 checks that never made it to the IRS.

“As a result, when RB learned that the payment had not been made on his behalf, and after speaking with IRS criminal investigators, RB wrote another $130,000 check to the IRS dated Feb. 14, 2007 to cover the 2006 taxes,” according to the court documents.

To cover her tracks, prosecutors allege Rowland filed fraudulent forms with the IRS, including forms asking for more time to file returns she filed even though the taxes were already done. In other instances, according to the press release, Rowland would show clients one set of tax forms but file a different set with different numbers with the IRS.

“In addition to her tax-related scheme, Rowland also pled guilty to stealing her father-in-law’s identity in a scheme to obtain numerous credit cards in his name without his knowledge. In total, approximately $85,000 was charged to these cards between January 2005 and December 2007,” according to the press release.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.