A Tennessee woman pleaded guilty today to conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud by her role in making claims for refunds of false COVID-19 employment tax credits.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Aylissa Glidewell, of Kingsport, conspired with others to file false tax returns seeking fraudulent refunds based on the employee retention credit and paid sick and family leave credit, both of which were created by Congress to aid struggling businesses during the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Glidewell and co-conspirators created phoney businesses that lacked any employees or operations for the sole purpose of claiming the bogus credits.
Glidewell filed numerous false tax returns for those phoney businesses and directed the tax refunds to be mailed to addresses she and her co-conspirators controlled.
In total, the refunds claimed were over $3.4 million, of which the IRS paid approximately $1.8 million.
Glidewell is set to be sentenced on July 9. She faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud.
A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
