CENTRAL ISLIP, New York — An indictment unsealed today in Central Islip, New York, reveals that seven individuals have been charged in connection with a large-scale conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government of over $600 million by filing over 8,000 false tax returns for COVID-19-related employment tax credits. The Justice Department (DOJ) announced the charges.
The defendants, Keith Williams, Jamari Lewis, Morais Dicks, Janine Davis, Tiffany Williams, James Hames Jr., and Ewendra Mathurin, operated the scheme between November 2021 and June 2023. They exploited tax relief programs meant to support businesses affected by the pandemic, filing false claims for COVID-related tax credits on behalf of themselves and their clients.
The scheme was run through Credit Reset, a business purportedly involved in credit repair and owned by Keith Williams. As tax preparers, the defendants filed fraudulent returns with the IRS, claiming excessive sick leave and family leave credits, along with duplicative credits for the same wages. The returns were often incomplete or inaccurate, prompting requests for additional information from the IRS and the Social Security Administration.
The defendants received refund checks from the U.S. Treasury and charged their clients fees or a percentage of these refunds. They also recruited others into the conspiracy, compensating them with shares of the fraudulently obtained funds.
In total, the conspiracy sought more than $600 million, and the IRS paid approximately $45 million to the defendants and their clients. To hide their activities, the conspirators used virtual private networks (VPNs) to mask their online activities and avoided listing themselves as paid preparers on the fraudulent returns. In some cases, they sold shell companies to clients who lacked legitimate businesses, enabling them to file the false returns.
The case highlights a coordinated effort to exploit pandemic-related relief programs, which were intended to assist struggling businesses, but were instead used to defraud the federal government. The investigation is ongoing, and the charges carry severe penalties.
