Man accused of scamming thousands in tax refund loans

Tami Woestemeyer remembers “an odd character” walking into her office in mid-January.

He wore cowboy boots, a cowboy hat and vest. Hanging from his neck were gold chains, complimenting the jewelry on his fingers.

“He was just kind of twitchy, said he worked for homeland security,” Woestemeyer said. “Stuff didn’t add up very well.”

The outfit was part of a ruse to allegedly steal more than $10,000, police said.

Randall Heath, 50, was arrested a couple days later inside her Liberty Tax Services store, ending a tax-season scam that victimized businesses loaning  money to people anticipating a federal tax refund. Heath was booked into the El Paso County jail on Feb. 2 on suspicion of 23 counts of money laundering, theft, identity theft, forgery and giving false information to a pawn broker.

He is being held without bond on an arrest warrant from another jurisdiction. No information about that warrant was available Monday.

Since mid-January, police say, Heath has been using stolen identities to try to get loans from several Liberty Tax Service offices.

The stolen identities were obtained in a break-in at a home where records for a defunct business had been kept, police said. The records included clients’ personal information.

Heath used that information and his photo to make fake driver’s licenses from several states including Nevada, Iowa and Texas and phony W-2s for each of the victims. W-2s are a federal form used to report annual wages and the amount of income taxes withheld.

Health allegedly used the phony W-2s to try to obtain seven $1,500 loans from different Liberty offices as well as a $50 bonus for filing taxes with Liberty, for a total of $10,850.

Woestemeyer said she suspected something was awry when Heath said he had a badge for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, though his W-2 wasn’t from the agency. She processed the paperwork because his social security number checked out in her system and his picture ID appeared real.

That same day, because of an off-hand comment Heath made, she called another franchise owner, Vern Werren, to ensure that Heath wasn’t visiting more than one franchise.

Werren remembered a man clad in jewelry visiting his store a day earlier. The two owners talked to several other franchise owners — all had seen the same man.

“If he hadn’t been so memorable, I don’t think anyone would have noticed,” Woestemeyer said.

At one store, Werren said, Heath handed over a W-2 claiming an Alaska state tax. The problem: Alaska has no state tax.

He said Heath returned an hour later with a corrected W-2.

Heath asked for at least three of the loans to be deposited directly into a bank account and asked for a check for the others, police said.

Police seized $17,000 in the bank account Heath allegedly set up under the name of one of the identity theft victims. Investigators believe the $17,000 came from fraudulent tax refunds.

In addition to the fraudulent tax returns, police suspect Heath tried to use victims’ personal information to obtain financing from a local used car dealership and also to pawn gold jewelry.

Police did not say whether he was able to get financing at the car dealership, or whether he successfully pawned the jewelry. The names of the businesses were not released.

After talking with Werren and other franchise owners, Woestemeyer went to the police. She said Heath was arrested a couple days after her first encounter with him when she helped with a sting in her office on South Nevada Avenue.

Woestemeyer said she asked Heath to pick up the loan check.

Officers were at the scene, waiting to talk to him.

“I had to be stalling until the officers came in,” said Woestemeyer, a first-year Liberty franchise owner. “It was an exciting kick-off to my first tax season.”

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Call the writer at 476-1654.