A Jacksonville woman who once hid from U.S. Marshals inside a Mississippi bathroom closet after fleeing an earlier tax fraud case is now facing a new federal indictment, this time accused of trying to claim more than $130 million in fraudulent tax refunds from the federal government. Candia V. Williams, who also goes by the name Wisdom Shield El, was charged with three counts of submitting false claims to the United States and one count of conspiring to submit false claims, according to court documents.
According to the Tampa Free Press, court documents allege Williams submitted at least four fraudulent tax returns to the IRS, backed by bogus paperwork that prosecutors state included fabricated IRS Form 1099-As and Form W-4s. A federal grand jury handed down the indictment, and IRS Criminal Investigation led the probe into the case. U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announced the charges, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael J. Coolican is prosecuting the case, per the outlet's report.
At least one fraudulent refund check was issued as a result of the alleged scheme, the report states, though the IRS later placed levies on bank accounts in an effort to recover the funds. If convicted on all counts, Williams faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in federal prison. That statutory ceiling stems from 18 U.S.C. § 286, which carries up to 10 years for conspiring to defraud the government on claims, and 18 U.S.C. § 287, which carries up to 5 years for each false claim submitted and requires prosecutors to prove a claim submitted to a federal agency was intentionally false or fictitious, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
A Familiar Name for Federal Prosecutors
This is not Williams' first encounter with federal tax fraud charges. She was previously convicted in Jacksonville federal court in November 2016 after pleading guilty to nine counts of aiding in the filing of false tax returns, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida. She had fled Florida following her initial May 2015 indictment and was captured by U.S. Marshals hiding in a Mississippi bathroom closet. At the time, Williams had operated Express Tax Returns in Jacksonville, an enterprise the office says caused more than $300,000 in lost federal revenue. That earlier case remains a confirmed conviction, while the new 2026 indictment is an allegation that has yet to be resolved in court.
The scheme described in the current indictment echoes a technique the IRS has flagged repeatedly among pseudolegal so-called “redemption” tax frauds. Form 1099-A is an information return meant solely for lenders to report property foreclosures or abandonments, but the IRS notes it is frequently misused by fraudsters to falsely claim massive withholdings against fictitious Treasury accounts. The agency has repeatedly included fictitious Form 1099 schemes on its annual “Dirty Dozen” list of tax scams.
Part of a Broader Federal Crackdown
The case is unfolding against the backdrop of a significant reorganization of federal fraud enforcement. The Department of Justice's National Fraud Enforcement Division was established on April 7, 2026, to target schemes against the public, consolidating federal criminal fraud units and mandating dedicated fraud prosecutors in every U.S. Attorney's Office nationwide, according to the Department of Justice.
President Trump's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, an interagency initiative that addresses waste, fraud and abuse across federal programs, was created through Executive Order 14395 in March 2026 and is chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance. The White House reported the task force had uncovered $230 billion in fraud by August 2026, and the administration launched Fraud.gov earlier this month as a public dashboard tracking federal fraud prosecutions, revealing more than 8,000 active fraud cases nationwide.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida, which filed the indictment against Williams, covers 35 of the state's 67 counties and serves more than 11.5 million residents, making it the second most populous federal judicial district in the country. IRS Criminal Investigation, the agency that investigated the case, reported an 89% conviction rate in fiscal year 2025 while identifying more than $10.5 billion in financial crimes, including $4.5 billion stemming directly from tax fraud, according to the agency's fiscal year 2025 annual report.
