Couple pleads guilty to stealing millions in COVID-19 relief funds

Date: Jan. 9, 2026

Contact: [email protected]

Charlotte, NC - A couple formerly living in Midland, N.C., has pleaded guilty to federal charges for stealing more than one million dollars in COVID-19 relief funds by defrauding the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), announced Russ Ferguson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. Tatiana Vazquez appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge David C. Keesler today and pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy affecting a financial institution and conspiracy to defraud the government. Marquise Highsmith pleaded guilty to the same charges on October 7, 2025.

Donald "Trey" Eakins, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS CI), Charlotte Field Office, and Joel Weaver, Special Agent in Charge of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), Southeast Field Division join U.S. Attorney Ferguson in making the announcement.

According to court documents, from May 2020 to January 2022, Highsmith, Vazquez, and their co-conspirators submitted multiple fraudulent applications to financial institutions and to the SBA to obtain loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. The defendants submitted applications for several purported businesses that they or other co-conspirators controlled. These applications contained fraudulent information related to the businesses' tax filings, number of employees, and other fabricated financial information. As a result, Highsmith and Vazquez personally received more than $450,000 in COVID-19 relief funds. After receiving the funds, the defendants filed loan forgiveness applications that also contained misrepresentations, and as a result some of the loans were subsequently forgiven.

In addition, from July 2022 to February 2023, Highsmith and Vazquez engaged in a separate but related conspiracy to fraudulently obtain COVID-19 relief funds through other federal programs administered by the IRS, including the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) program and the Sick Leave and Family Leave Credit (SFLC) program. The ERC and SFLC programs enabled certain businesses to receive federal tax credit for employment taxes or wages, a certain portion of which were refundable. The defendants and their coconspirators defrauded the IRS by preparing and filing fraudulent forms that falsely claimed millions of dollars in tax credits and other corresponding tax refunds. As a result, the defendants and their coconspirators improperly received more than $1 million in COVID-19 related tax refunds.

Both Vasquez and Highsmith are released on bond. A sentencing date has not been set.

In making the announcement, U.S. Attorney Ferguson thanked TIGTA and IRS-CI for leading the investigation, and Homeland Security Investigations and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department for their assistance.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys William Bozin and Daniel Ryan of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Charlotte are prosecuting the case.

IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.