Trial begins for Arlington IRS agent accused of stealing her mother’s identity
According to authorities, this was a crime that occurred over a number of months.
Brenda Soulas, 45, of Arlington, is suspected of stealing her mother’s Social Security number and then using the information to obtain five credit cards, which she allegedly used to purchase outings to the WinStar Casino in Oklahoma, lunch and baseball training camps, among other things.
Soulas works for the IRS with the business tax group and remains employed there.
Her trial on a fraud charge is underway this week in a Tarrant County courtroom.
The accused woman’s mother, Phong Moore, testified Tuesday that when she came from Thailand to the United States with her new husband in May 1973, she had no formal education, no knowledge of the English language, and she was pregnant.
Phong Moore, 74, said she now knows a little English, can sometimes sign her name and can count to 200. She said she cannot read, so she doesn’t drive, and she testified with the aid of a translator. Phong Moore also said that she knows nothing about computers and has never used a debit or credit card.
“I didn’t have time to go to school,” she said.
Her daughter, Soulas, never had her permission to use her identification to have credit cards issued in her name, Phong Moore said during questioning by Lori Varnell, Tarrant County prosecutor. But when cross-examined by the defendant’s attorney, Matt Peacock, she tried to change or clarify answers she had given him during a deposition.
“I don’t want to hurt my kids,” Phong Moore can be heard saying during a recording of the deposition that was played outside the presence of the jury.
In the deposition, Phong Moore said all her children had to do was ask and she would give them whatever she had, that she did not care if she had nothing.
During her testimony on Tuesday, what Phong Moore said she meant was that: “I wanted them to be happy, not that I wanted nothing.”
During the deposition, Phong Moore also called her son Dalton Moore the number one liar. But during the trial Phong Moore clarified that point, testifying that she said that because he likes to joke around a lot.
The offense date for the five counts of identity theft Soulas faces is listed as Dec. 26, 2015, according to documents filed with the Tarrant County District Clerk’s Office. But witness testimony suggested the credit cards were issued to Soulas in the latter part of 2015 and into early 2016 when Soulas’ mother, Phong Moore, was vacationing in Alabama.
The total amounts charged on the credit cards is unclear, but the charges are estimated at about $14,000.
Soulas’ brother, Dalton Moore, turned in his sister to police.
Dalton Moore testified that his suspicions began when he accompanied his mother to the bank and an employee asked to update her contact information. After returning from the bank Phong Moore began to receive requests that she pay her credit card bills, the brother said.
Dalton Moore told the jury that he started researching his mother’s credit usage using a Credit Karma account and discovered that four other credit cards had been issued to his sister’s address. Dalton Moore testified that when he told his mother what was going on, she didn’t believe him, and wanted to speak to her daughter personally.
After several unsuccessful tries, Dalton Moore said, he was able to get his sister to answer the phone so they could ask her about the credit card bills.
“She (Brenda Soulas) admitted that she got the cards and was paying the charges,” the brother testified. “And then she hung up.”
After a day or two, Dalton Moore said, he reported the incident to the police.
After reporting his suspicions to police, he reported what happened to the Internal Revenue Service because through the IRS, his sister has access to the Social Security numbers of many people, he said.
“I thought if she was brazen enough to do this to her mom, she might do it to others,” Dalton Moore said. “My mom is old and she lives on a fixed income. All she has is her good credit.”
An investigator with the U.S. Treasury Department investigated but found that Soulas had not obtained anyone’s identifying information through her job at the IRS.
Soulas’ husband, Kenneth Soulas, was called to testify on Tuesday but declined outside the presence of the jury, exercising his Fifth Amendment constitutional right against self-incrimination.
Testimony is expected to continue Wednesday.
This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 2:05 PM.
