Davante Mallard

Introduction

Davante Mallard, 33, of New Haven, Connecticut, pleaded guilty on October 16, 2026 to a federal charge stemming from a pandemic relief program fraud scheme, admitting his part in a conspiracy in which his one-man realty business — a company with no employees, no wages, and no filed W-2s — was used to collect six fraudulent IRS refund checks totaling $256,906 under the CARES Act’s employee retention and sick leave credit programs. Mallard waived his right to be indicted and entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Sarah F. Russell in New Haven, in a case announced by U.S. Attorney David X. Sullivan and IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Thomas Demeo. He remains free on a $50,000 bond pending sentencing, which has not been scheduled.

Background Information

The scheme Mallard admitted to was built on two pandemic-era tax programs. In March 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), which created employee retention credits (ERCs) intended to repay employers for costs of retaining employees during the pandemic, and permitted businesses to recoup previously paid wages and certain health insurance costs. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act created the sick and family leave credit (SFLC), which reimbursed small and mid-sized employers for the cost of providing paid sick and family leave wages related to COVID-19. Both programs paid money to employers who claimed qualifying employees — which is exactly what Mallard’s business did not have.

Mallard owned Mallard Dynasty Realty Group (MDR Group), which provided real estate and property management services. According to court documents and statements made in court, the business earned little to no income, had no employees, had not paid wages, and had not filed W-2 forms with the Internal Revenue Service. On paper it was precisely the kind of company that could never qualify for employee-based pandemic credits — the admitting facts of his plea made the fraud’s impossibility part of the record.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Pleaded guilty. Mallard pleaded guilty to making false claims regarding IRS refunds, an offense carrying a maximum term of imprisonment of five years. His plea is a conviction of record; sentencing has not yet occurred.

In early 2022, Mallard was contacted by individuals he knew who instructed him to open an online account with a business that provided online tax preparation services. Mallard then provided those individuals with the account information and password — handing the keys of his business’s tax identity to other people. Between April 2022 and February 2023, those individuals accessed the account and prepared and filed with the IRS fraudulent Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Returns (Forms 941) for MDR Group. The forms misrepresented the number of employees and total wages paid, and were used to apply for large ERC and SFLC refunds for a company that had neither.

The fraud nearly worked perfectly. Between August 2022 and March 2023, MDR Group received six refund checks from the IRS totaling $256,906 — money the federal government paid out on the strength of employees who never existed. When the IRS contacted Mallard to verify information about MDR Group, he provided false information to the tax agency, including the claim that his business had five employees. Mallard admitted he kicked a portion of the refund monies back to the individuals who orchestrated the scheme — his payment for lending his business and his signature to the operation. His October 16, 2026 guilty plea to making false claims regarding IRS refunds resolved his exposure at a maximum of five years’ imprisonment.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher W. Schmeisser. The announcement tied the prosecution to the Justice Department’s current fraud-enforcement posture: on April 7, the Department announced the creation of its National Fraud Enforcement Division, “laser-focused” on investigating and prosecuting fraud against the American people, in support of the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance. Pandemic-program fraud — ERC schemes above all — has become a signature target of that enforcement wave, and Mallard’s plea landed squarely inside it.

The consequences now pending for Mallard are a sentencing hearing before Judge Russell where the $256,906 in fraudulently obtained refunds will anchor the loss calculation, restitution presumably to follow, and a maximum statutory sentence of five years for the false-claims offense. He remains on a $50,000 bond — free, but with a federal felony conviction already entered and the sentencing range ahead of him.

Current Status

Mallard, 33, is a convicted federal felon awaiting sentencing, which has not been scheduled. He pleaded guilty on October 16, 2026 to making false claims regarding IRS refunds, admitting the mechanics of the scheme: the account credentials handed to the scheme’s orchestrators, the fraudulent Forms 941 filed in his company’s name, the six refund checks totaling $256,906, the false “five employees” answer to the IRS, and the kickbacks to the individuals who ran the operation. What remains to be determined is how much of the money comes back and how much prison time the conviction costs him — questions for Judge Russell’s sentencing, where the maximum is five years.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Mallard’s realty and property management business — Mallard Dynasty Realty Group — now carries a federal fraud conviction in its name, the direct product of the scheme he admitted lending it to. At 33, he has traded a $256,906 share of pandemic relief money (some of which he kicked back to others) for a felony record, a five-year maximum sentence, and the restitution-and-supervised-release architecture that follows an IRS fraud conviction. His case also documents the ERC-fraud supply chain from the inside: business owners who never organized the scheme themselves, but who supplied their companies as vehicles — credentials, signatures, and false answers to the IRS — in exchange for a cut. The Justice Department’s new Fraud Division has made that role a charging target, and Mallard’s plea is its local expression in the District of Connecticut.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Connecticut, “New Haven Man Pleads Guilty to Pandemic Relief Program Fraud Offense,” October 16, 2026 — source