Tax Preparers Charged in Scheme to Defraud Covid Relief of $65 Million; Florida Black Man Scammed More Than $1 Million in COVID Relief Using How Many Identities??, and other C-Virus related stories
Tax Preparers Charged in Scheme to Defraud Covid Relief of $65 Million:
The preparers filed for pandemic-related tax credits on behalf of ineligible clients and then netted hefty filing fees, officials said.
Two Mississippi tax preparers used multiple schemes to defraud $65 million from programs that had been designed to help businesses stay afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, federal prosecutors said this week.
The preparers, Renata Walton, 44, and Nicole Jones, 36, both of Olive Branch, Miss., were indicted on more than 50 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, preparing false tax returns and obstruction of justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee said on Wednesday.
They both pleaded not guilty and were each released on $100,000 bond, court documents show.
Ms. Walton owned R&B Tax Express in Moscow, Tenn., where she and Ms. Jones prepared tax returns.
Federal prosecutors said that the two women contacted small-business clients and asked if they were interested in pandemic-related grant money, according to court records. The women would then file for pandemic-related tax credits on behalf of the clients even though they were ineligible for those funds, officials said.
The money came mostly from the Employee Retention Credit and the Sick and Family Leave Credit programs, court documents show.
The Employee Retention Credit program offered companies thousands of dollars per employee if they could show that the pandemic was hurting their businesses, but that they were continuing to pay workers. Sick and Family Leave Credit offered tax breaks to employers who voluntarily gave their workers paid sick and family leave if they needed to take time off because of the pandemic. —>READ MORE HERE
Florida Black Man Scammed More Than $1 Million in COVID Relief Using How Many Identities??
If convicted, Conrad Brandon Bernard faces up to 30 years in prison.
A Fort Lauderdale, Fla. man who spent years swindling unemployment and COVID relief funds from the system just had his hustle blown all the way up – and now, he’s looking at some serious time in jail.
Conrad Brandon Bernard pled guilty to bank fraud and identity theft on Nov. 15, according to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
As News 4 JAX reports, authorities believe the 24-year-old ran his scheme between May 2020 and December 2022, stealing the identities of at least 14 people to get his hands on over $1 million in COVID and unemployment benefits.
The State’s Attorney’s Office says the United States Small Business Association (SBA) approved applications Bernard filed for COVID relief funds under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program and transferred money into multiple bank accounts he set up using other people’s personal identification information. He then moved the funds he received from the government into accounts in his name. —>READ MORE HERE
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