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Lonnise Janelle Andrews

Defendant

ERC
Type
Person
Role
Defendant
Programs
ERC
Updated

The profile

A Macon, Georgia woman who invented a company with 957 employees, asked the IRS for a $3,086,325 advance on COVID employer credits, and filed false income tax returns for herself and her father. She got $331,758 in refunds and was sentenced in January 2024 to 51 months.

Identity and role

Lonnise Janelle Andrews, 43 at her plea and 45 at sentencing, of Macon, Georgia, was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Georgia after an IRS investigation.

The scheme and pandemic-relief role

Andrews filed for an entity she called Andrews Harris Corbin (AHC), listing her father and a fictitious "Greg Corbin" as its organizers. AHC had never filed an income tax return or reported any employees to the Social Security Administration, according to court documents. In 2020 she reported that AHC had 957 employees and filed a Form 7200, the form the IRS created for employers to request an advance of the COVID employment credits, including the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), asking for $3,086,325.

On April 11, 2020 she filed a Form 941, the return on which employers claimed the ERC, reporting that AHC paid $1,435,500 in wages and requested a refund of $25,978.83. The IRS sent that check to a UPS mailbox in Macon that her father had set up. Surveillance video showed him picking it up on December 8, 2020. The check was never deposited; agents found it in her bedroom during a search.

The larger payout came from her own income tax return. For 2019 she used a tax preparation website to generate fake Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-R and received a $165,245 refund, which she cashed. In all the office put the scheme at more than $3.5 million and the refunds she received at $331,758.

  • Pleaded guilty: September 11, 2023, to making and subscribing a false return, a false claim for a tax credit and a false claim for a refund.
  • Sentenced: January 23, 2024, by U.S. District Judge Marc T. Treadwell to 51 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $331,758 in restitution to the IRS.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

The January 2024 sentence is the last public record of Andrews we found.

Sources

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