Date: Aug. 5, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Jackson, MS — A Pearl woman pled guilty to carrying out a scheme to defraud the COVID-19 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). According to court documents, Robbie Reese fraudulently claimed and received over $1.3 million in federal tax rebates and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds. Reese submitted false Internal Revenue Service tax forms claiming reimbursement for payments to nonexistent employees and false loan documents for PPP loans. Reese is scheduled to be sentenced on November 7, 2024, and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. U.S. Attorney Todd W. Gee of the Southern District of Mississippi, Supervisory Special Agent Louis Norvell of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS CI), and Resident Agent in Charge Kyle Smith of the Secret Service made the announcement. The IRS Criminal Investigation and the Secret Service are investigating the case. Deputy Criminal Chief Lynn Murray is prosecuting the case. On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
