Red flag returns; dubious dental surgeries; high percentage of refunds; and other highlights of recent tax cases.
Chicago: The Chicago rapper known as Twista has pleaded guilty to five counts of willfully failing to pay his income taxes and faces up to five years in prison. He is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 22.
Twista, whose legal name is Carl Mitchell, failed to pay income tax from 2019 to 2023 and owes more than $440,000 in back taxes.
Best known for his 2004 album "Kamikaze," Mitchell has collaborated with musicians including Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, and Jamie Foxx on the song "Slow Jamz." He has received two Grammy nominations.
His income stemmed from performances, album sales, streaming and royalties, according to IRS Criminal Investigations.
Despite warnings from both the IRS and his own accountants of his tax debts, "Instead, Mitchell entered into agreements with a third-party company to pay him advances on future royalties, knowing that the IRS would not be able to levy these funds," the IRS said in a statement.
Mitchell also has unpaid tax liabilities dating back to 2011, and the government alleges Mitchell made large purchases to support his lifestyle, including buying at least four luxury vehicles.
Benton County, Mississippi: A Benton County woman who submitted fraudulent tax forms to steal more than $1.4 million in pandemic relief funds was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison and ordered to pay full restitution.
Patricia Jones, 44, of Lamar, was indicted in June 2025 on 10 counts of wire fraud. She reportedly submitted false and fraudulent IRS forms to obtain Employee Retention Credit funds, which were designed to encourage employers to continue to pay employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jones submitted forms on behalf of herself and others, claiming over $3.8 million in fraudulent refunds and generating over $1.4 million in fraudulent payments by the IRS to herself and others.
Facing up to 20 years per charge, Jones agreed to plead guilty to a single count in late March. In exchange for her plea, the government dropped the remaining counts.
Jones was sentenced to serve 50 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. The former tax preparer and hair dresser was also ordered to pay $1,422,022 in restitution. Jones is scheduled to report Aug. 24 to a facility designated later by the Bureau of Prisons.
St. Louis: The former owner of a St. Louis tax preparation business was convicted of 16 counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation and presentation of false and fraudulent tax returns.
Latasha L. Frison, 39, owned a tax preparation business in downtown St. Louis under various names including Taxed Rite. She lived in Cahokia at the time and now lives in Texas. Frison falsified information on more than a dozen tax returns of six taxpayers for tax years between 2020 and 2023, triggering hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds to which they were not entitled.
The investigation was triggered by red flags on hundreds of individual income tax returns that Frison prepared during that period, evidence showed. Returns prepared by Frison included an unusually high percentage of refunds, Schedule Cs, COVID-19 family and sick leave credits and federal fuel tax credits.
Between 2021 and 2024, Frison filed more than 680 individual income tax returns, all but two of which claimed a refund. In one of those years, the average refund amount for tax returns filed by Frison exceeded $14,000, while the national and state averages in Missouri and Illinois were around $3,400.
Numerous Frison clients testified that, unbeknownst to them at the time, returns filed by her on their behalf contained false information, including false income figures for small businesses that didn't exist.
Frison is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 30. Each count carries a potential penalty of up to three years in prison.
Memphis, Tennessee : A federal judge sentenced Robert Wells, 54, and Andre Wilson, 54, to federal prison for defrauding the United States Government.
Wells and Wilson owned Wells and Wilson Financial, a Memphis-based tax preparation business, from at least 2017 to 2025. During the relevant time period, both men conspired with each other to defraud the IRS out of more than $250,000 by filing fraudulent tax returns from 2018 through 2022.
Specifically, Wells and Wilson defrauded the IRS by preparing returns for clients that were materially false, including false itemized deductions, false businesses and false business income and/or expenses. As a result, many of their clients received inflated refunds to which they were not entitled.
Wilson was sentenced on June 17 to 24 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. Wells was sentenced on June 18 to 14 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. Both defendants were ordered to pay restitution in the total amount of $163,762.80.
New River, Arizona: An Arizona woman pleaded guilty to attempting to steal more than $7.7 million in government funds by filing fraudulent tax returns.
Regina Durkin, of New River, conspired with others to defraud the United States by submitting false quarterly employment tax returns to the IRS. The scheme centered on fraudulent claims for two pandemic-era tax credits — the Employee Retention Credit and the paid sick and family leave credit — programs Congress created to aid struggling businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The companies listed on the filings were not in operation at the time, had no employees and paid no wages. In total, Durkin and her co-conspirators submitted 14 fraudulent claims seeking more than $7.7 million in tax. Durkin pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to file false claims. She is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 11 and faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Hammond, Florida: Justyn Arch, 40, of Hammond, was sentenced after pleading guilty to health care fraud, aggravated identity theft and tax evasion.
Arch was sentenced to 36 months in prison and ordered to pay $520,897 in restitution.
Arch bilked Indiana Medicaid out of money set aside to help members of the community with their medical bills and the IRS of over half a million dollars combined. Arch was vice president of a dental practice that had locations in Chesterton and Crown Point, Indiana. Over a period of two and a half years, Arch submitted claims to Indiana Medicaid by falsely billing for hundreds of dental surgeries that were never performed. To carry out this scheme, Arch used, without authorization, the personal identifiers of patients to support payment for the fraudulent claims. To conceal the illegal income from this scheme, he also committed tax evasion.
Pittsburgh: Michael D. Funovits, a resident of Butler, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced in federal court to three years of probation and ordered to pay restitution of $711,253.10 to the IRS on his conviction of willful failure to collect or pay over tax.
Between 2016 and 2023, Funovits failed to pay over to the IRS payroll taxes he collected on behalf of his businesses, PennRo Associates LLC and Penn Exteriors LLC.
