In August 2026, in the Northern District of Mississippi, Tierra Scott was sentenced to one year and a day imprisonment for aiding and abetting wire fraud. After imprisonment, Scott will have supervised release for 5 years and must pay $206,000 in restitution. Scott was an IRS employee in Memphis, Tennessee. Working with two coconspirators, Scott devised a scheme to file fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) applications and agreements. EIDL was a Small Business Administration program that provided low-interest financing to small businesses, renters, and homeowners in regions suffering the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Scott submitted a false and fraudulent EIDL application that overstated business income to obtain a larger loan amount and claimed the fictitious business had operated in the previous 12 months. Scott’s EIDL loan application included a fraudulent IRS Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss from Business, and tax return for the year 2019 that grossly overstated her actual business income. Scott received $206,000 in EIDL funds and paid her coconspirators $45,000. The submission of the loan application and receipt of the EIDL funds involved transmission by means of wire communications in interstate commerce.