Tri-Cities Woman Pleads Guilty To Defrauding US Govt.

A Tri-Cities woman had plead guilty to her role in a conspiracy to defraud the federal government of over one million dollars.

The US Attorney’s office says that 35 year old Aylissa Glidewell of Kingsport plead guilty on Wednesday in federal court in Greeneville to conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud. According to federal prosecutors, Glidewell conspired with others to file false tax returns seeking fraudulent refunds based on the employee retention credit (ERC) and paid sick and family leave credit. Both of those credits had been created by Congress to aid struggling businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Glidewell and her co-conspirators created phony businesses, which in reality had no employees or operations. They did so for the sole purpose of claiming the bogus credits. Glidewell filed numerous false tax returns for those phony businesses and directed the tax refunds to be mailed to an address she and co-conspirators controlled. In total, the refunds claimed were over $3.4 million, of which the IRS paid out approximately $1.8 million.

Glidewell will be sentenced on July 9th and faces up to 20 years in prison.