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Kevin J. Gregory

Defendant

ERC
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Person
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Defendant
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ERC
Updated

The profile

A Hollywood man who claimed about $65 million in COVID-19 employment tax credits for a Beverly Hills "farming-and-transportation company" that employed nobody. The IRS paid more than $2.7 million. He pleaded guilty to one false-claims count and was sentenced in May 2025 to 57 months in prison.

Identity and role

Kevin J. Gregory, 55 when he was arrested in May 2023 and 57 at sentencing, of Hollywood, California, was the defendant in a Central District of California false-claims prosecution brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles and investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation. The business in the case was Elijah USA Farm Holdings, which he described as a Beverly Hills farming-and-transportation company.

The scheme and pandemic-relief role

From November 2020 to April 2022, according to his plea agreement as the office summarized it, Gregory filed quarterly federal tax returns for Elijah USA Farm Holdings claiming the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) and the paid sick and family leave credits, and asked the IRS for refunds totaling nearly $65.4 million. (The sentencing release gives nearly $65.3 million.)

One return shows how the numbers were built. In January 2022 Gregory claimed a refund of $23,877,620 on a quarterly return that said the company employed 33 people, paid nearly $1.6 million in quarterly wages, had deposited nearly $18 million in federal taxes and was owed nearly $6.5 million in COVID-relief credits, the ERC among them. "In fact," the sentencing release says, "Gregory knew that Elijah Farm employed nobody and paid wages to no one and had not made federal tax deposits to the IRS in the amounts stated."

Nearly $18 million of claimed deposits plus nearly $6.5 million of credits comes to about $24.5 million, close to the $23.9 million requested: most of that refund rested on tax deposits that were never made, not on the ERC itself. The IRS paid part of what he claimed, and Gregory spent more than $2.7 million of it on personal expenses.

  • Charged: a grand jury indictment returned May 11, 2023 charged 17 counts of making false claims to the IRS. IRS Criminal Investigation agents arrested him that month, and he has been in federal custody since May 2023.
  • Pleaded guilty: January 17, 2025, to one count of making false claims to the IRS (statutory maximum five years).
  • Sentenced: by U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton to 57 months in federal prison and $2,769,173 in restitution, the office announced on May 22, 2025.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

The May 2025 sentence is the last public record of Gregory we found. The restitution order, $2,769,173, is close to the amount the IRS paid out; the $65 million is what he asked for.

Sources

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