Banking Analyst Imprisoned As Tax Cheat

A former Morgan Stanley investment banking analyst has been sentenced to prison for stealing more than $572,000 from the state tax department and trying to steal another $4.64 million by filing for bogus tax refunds.

We Jin Shon, a Canadian citizen who worked for Morgan Stanley in England, was sentenced to 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years in prison after he pleaded guilty Tuesday to grand larceny and attempted grand larceny.

Shon, 25, also was ordered to pay $282,863 in restitution to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. He has already paid the agency $289,659, said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Shon's lawyer, Samuel Gregory, said his client was a young man "who got himself in debt in amounts he was incapable of paying and made a terrible mistake."

Shon tried to get refunds totaling $5,212,532 by electronically filing 30 phony state personal income tax returns from March 18 through April 27, Thompson said.

Shon claimed that the purported taxpayer was an investment banker, a trader, a broker or a managing director who paid taxes on income ranging from $6.7 million to $9.7 million in 2006, Thompson said. The tax returns claimed charitable deductions in amounts from $3 million to $4 million, and each return claimed a refund ranging from $123,148 to $232,542, Thompson said.

Shon received three refunds totaling $575,522 wired into his bank accounts, Thompson said.

The investigation began after Shon tried to withdraw $189,681 from a North Fork Bank account and an assistant manager noticed that the source of the funds was a state tax refund in the name of another person, Thompson said.