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Candies Goode-McCoy

Defendant

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Defendant
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The profile

A Las Vegas business owner who filed about 1,227 false employment tax returns claiming COVID-19 credits for herself and others, seeking more than $98 million; the IRS paid about $33 million. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy and was sentenced in April 2026 to 54 months in prison and $26,022,188 in restitution.

Identity and role

Candies Goode-McCoy, formerly of Las Vegas, was prosecuted in the District of Nevada by the Justice Department's tax prosecutors and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Las Vegas, after an investigation by IRS Criminal Investigation and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The releases call her a business owner who filed returns "for her own businesses and those of others."

The scheme and pandemic-relief role

From about June 2022 through September 2023, according to the Justice Department, Goode-McCoy filed approximately 1,227 false tax returns claiming the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) and the paid sick and family leave credit. The claims sought refunds of more than $98 million; the IRS paid approximately $33 million. She received more than $1.3 million in refunds herself and was paid about $800,000 by the people she filed for. The proceeds went to luxury cars, casino gambling, vacations and other luxury goods, the department said. It also said neither she nor her clients were eligible for the ERC or leave credits "in the amounts claimed."

The filing ran well after the credit's own dates. The ERC covered wages paid in 2020 and 2021; these returns went in from mid-2022 to September 2023, claims for past quarters, for which the IRS deadline was generally April 15, 2024 (2020 quarters) and April 15, 2025 (2021 quarters).

One client's case shows how the business reached others. Adonia Stiles, a Las Vegas real estate agent, tax preparer and clothing store owner, had Goode-McCoy file 11 false employment tax returns for her clothing store seeking more than $800,000, and sent 18 other people to Goode-McCoy, who filed more than 150 false returns for them claiming $15 million in credits, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

  • Pleaded guilty: February 13, 2025 ("yesterday," in the department's February 14 release), to one count of conspiracy to defraud the government with respect to claims (maximum 10 years).
  • Sentenced: April 6, 2026, to 54 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $26,022,188 in restitution to the IRS. The department announced the sentence at a Washington press conference with two other cases, citing the President's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.
  • Adonia Stiles: pleaded guilty in April 2026 to conspiring to defraud the United States and was sentenced in July 2026 to 18 months in prison.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

The April 2026 sentence is the last public record of Goode-McCoy we found. The restitution order, $26,022,188, is about $7 million less than the $33 million the department says the IRS paid on the whole scheme.

Sources

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