Calif. woman arrested for impersonating Cardoza aide

A California woman was arrested Thursday on charges of falsely impersonating an aide to Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.).

In a federal indictment, the Justice Department (DOJ) alleges that 51-year old Susan Tomsha-Miguel pretended to be a staffer of Cardoza’s by forging a letter to a client of hers on a counterfeit piece of the lawmaker’s letterhead that she created.

Tomsha-Miguel ran a tax consulting and bookkeeping business and was approached by a client who asked her to help them resolve a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), according to the DOJ’s indictment.

Tomsha-Miguel sought and received assurances from Cardoza’s office that they would help her with the IRS issue, according to the DOJ.

She then sent a letter to her client on forged letterhead claiming to be an aide to Cardoza and stating that because of Tomsha-Miguel’s efforts the lawmaker’s office had contacted the IRS on the client’s behalf.

“In reality, the aide did not exist and Tomsha-Miguel had forged the letterhead by copying-and-pasting Representative Cardoza’s official letterhead onto a blank sheet of paper,” stated the DOJ in a release.

“The indictment further alleges that Tomsha-Miguel had written the letter from the non-existent aide herself and then sent it to her client in order to mislead her client into believing that she had succeeded in alleviating his tax problems.”

If convicted, Tomsha-Miguel could receive a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Cardoza’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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