Identity thief picks wrong target: Attorney General Eric Holder

Aug. 12, 2013: Attorney General Eric Holder speaks to the American Bar Association Annual meeting. (AP)

Pro tip: If you're going to try your hand at identity thieving, avoid using the name of the top law enforcement officer in the country.

Yafait Tadesse could have used that lesson. He was sentenced this week to a year and a day in prison for using more than 10 other identities -- including Attorney General Eric Holder's -- to file fraudulent tax returns.

According to the Justice Department, Tadesse and another co-defendant swiped names and Social Security numbers from websites and used them to file the false tax returns, seeking fraudulent refunds, between 2012 and 2013.

The returns claimed, incorrectly, that the individuals worked at Wal-Mart -- and that refunds should be loaded onto debit cards, to be sent to the same Georgia mailing address.

One of the returns used the identity of Eric Holder, who does not work at Wal-Mart.

According to the DOJ, there is "no indication" Holder was specifically targeted because of his position. Rather, his information may have been obtained from "publicly available websites."

The IRS and FBI investigated the case. Tadesse, in addition to his prison sentence, was ordered to pay $4,014 to the IRS. The other defendant already pleaded guilty and will be sentenced later this year.