Pandemic Darlings The pandemic economy, in original documents
Home Profiles Lakisha Pearson

Profiles · Defendants

ProfilePerson

Lakisha Pearson

Defendant

PPP · ERC
Type
Person
Role
Defendant
Programs
PPP, ERC
Updated

The profile

Owner of Unity Tax Express in Holly Springs, Mississippi, who filed Employee Retention Credit claims totaling nearly $47 million for people who, prosecutors said, thought they were getting a government grant. The IRS mailed $15,942,586.77 in checks. She was sentenced in January 2025 to 52 months in prison, and in April 2025 to 75 more for PPP fraud.

Identity and role

Lakisha Pearson, 48 at sentencing, of Holly Springs, Mississippi, owns Unity Tax Express, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Mississippi. The ERC case against her was prosecuted in Oxford, Mississippi, after an IRS Criminal Investigation inquiry.

The scheme and pandemic-relief role

Pearson pleaded guilty to using the internet to file false Employee Retention Credit claims "for numerous persons totaling nearly $47 million and taking kickbacks from those persons," the office said. The IRS mailed Treasury checks totaling $15,942,586.77 to the claimants, "who thought they were given a government grant and were not aware that Pearson had filed tax returns on their behalf."

The credit was a refund of payroll taxes, claimed on a business's employment tax return. The people in this case received IRS checks without knowing that returns had been filed in their names. The office did not say how many claimants there were or what share of each check Pearson took.

The ERC scheme came to light during a separate investigation of Paycheck Protection Program loans. In that case Lakisha Pearson and her husband, Robert Pearson, 54, who also ran Unity Tax Express, helped numerous people get PPP loans with false employee counts and business descriptions, in return for kickbacks, according to the office.

  • Pleaded guilty: to mail fraud in the ERC case.
  • Sentenced: by U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills to 52 months and ordered to repay $15,942,586.77 in restitution, the full amount of the checks the IRS mailed, the office announced on January 30, 2025.
  • PPP case: convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud; on April 8, 2025 U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock sentenced her to 75 months, consecutive to the 52-month ERC sentence, for a total of 127 months. Robert Pearson received 110 months. The couple were ordered to repay $3,364,052 in restitution.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

The April 2025 release is the last public record of Pearson we found. Her ERC restitution, $15,942,586.77, equals the amount the IRS paid; the $47 million is what the returns asked for. The PPP restitution of $3,364,052 was ordered against the couple.

Sources

Back to top