On Wednesday, Just the News posted an article about a scheme that sought almost $25 million in false COVID-19 relief tax refunds.
The article reports:
A North Carolina tax return preparation business owner has joined seven former colleagues in pleading guilty to a scheme that sought almost $25 million in false COVID-19 relief tax refunds.
The Justice Department on Wednesday announced that the company’s owner, Nejlai Mitchell, filed fake tax returns based on a paid sick and family leave credit — which Congress passed to help struggling businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic — from April 2022 through May 2023.
The IRS paid out approximately $13.9 million in false tax refund claims due to the conspiracy, which operated out of the North Carolina cities of Lumberton and Hope Mills, according to documents and statements presented in court.
Seven other return preparers who worked for Mitchell have already pleaded guilty to their roles in the scheme, which was to prepare the fake tax returns: Jeannie Negron and Sylvia Swindell pleaded guilty in August 2025; Eyoubo McBurney and Katrena Stanback in September 2025; and Tiffany Moody and Shaneen Ray in December 2025.
“Instead of honoring their legal and ethical duties as tax preparers, this group allegedly engineered a calculated scheme to enrich themselves by submitting false returns,” Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, Colin McDonald, said in a statement.
The article concludes:
A federal judge will decide each penalty.
“Stealing taxpayer funded relief during a national emergency is both reprehensible and deeply harmful to the public,” McDonald said.
The IRS investigated the case, prosecuted by Caroline Pearson, a trial attorney, and Ethan Ontjes, assistant U.S. attorney for North Carolina’s Eastern District.
The Covid relief program will probably be remembered as a program that created more fraud than any government program in history. It was so poorly administered that many people who had no right to taxpayer money were given large amounts of it. It is only appropriate that those who took advantage of the lax oversight should face consequences for their behavior.