HONOLULU – United States Attorney Ken Sorenson announced that Hannah Heart, 67, of Honolulu, was sentenced today in federal court by Senior United States District Judge J. Michael Seabright to 18 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for conspiring to defraud the IRS by fraudulently obtaining a tax refund and then thwarting efforts to recoup it and for mail fraud against her mortgage lender. On May 22, 2025, Heart pled guilty to one count of attempting to defraud the IRS and one count of attempting to defraud her mortgage lender using the mails.According to court documents and statements made in court, Heart conspired with others to file a false 2014 individual income tax return in her name. As part of the conspiracy, Heart’s co-conspirators created a fake tax form purportedly issued by a mortgage lender to Heart, which Heart attached to her return.
The form falsely reported that Heart had received income from a financial institution of more than $2.4 million, from which over $1.2 million in taxes had been withheld. The inclusion of this false income and withholding information on Heart’s 2014 filed tax return resulted in the IRS issuing Heart a fraudulent refund of $471,949.23.After filing the false tax return and submitting the fake tax form, Heart took steps to try and ensure that the IRS could not recover the fraudulently obtained refund. For example, Heart deposited the refund check into a bank account she had opened in the name of a trust and immediately transferred most of the balance to a separate bank account. She also sent numerous false, fraudulent, and frivolous letters to the IRS in response to IRS efforts to recover the fraudulently obtained tax refund.
Following the receipt of her own refund, Heart assisted another co-conspirator, Sook Young Jung, in participating in the same scheme. Heart and Jung together deposited a second fraudulently obtained refund check from the IRS, payable to Jung, in the amount of $1,147,036.31. In total, Heart caused a tax loss to the IRS of $1,618,985.54.Court documents and statements made in court also reveal that Heart attempted to defraud her mortgage lender. Heart took out a mortgage for her home but stopped making payments toward her mortgage.
Heart’s mortgage lender then initiated foreclosure proceedings against her. In response, a co-conspirator of Heart’s sent the lender a false and fictitious document purporting to be a check for the full outstanding amount of Heart’s mortgage. The lender initially accepted the check but later rejected it as fraudulent. Afterward, Heart sent mail to the lender demanding that it accept the fraudulent check as full payment of her remaining balance.
In pleading guilty, Heart admitted that she intended to defraud the mortgage lender of $2,066,522.22.In addition to the term of imprisonment, Judge Seabright ordered $1,618,985.54 in restitution. Judge Seabright noted that a term of incarceration was called for because deterrence is particularly important in tax cases.IRS Criminal Investigation, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and FBI investigated the case.Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregg Paris Yates of the District of Hawaii and Trial Attorneys Sarah Kiewlicz and Megan Jones of the Criminal Division, Tax Section prosecuted the case.