Final Notice

The Queen’s Refund

• Jason Carr, Esq. • Episode 16

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Queen Naja, also known as Renata Winifred Ince and Naja Talibah Zahir, was sentenced to 165 months in prison for conspiracy to commit mail fraud after court records and trial evidence showed a scheme to use a legal trust, false tax documents, and a fraudulent payment to obtain a refund from the IRS.

The IRS issued a Treasury check for $1,010,561.26, and the court later found additional false returns and fraudulent payments tied to refunds issued to Naja’s mother. The court also determined that additional attempted fraudulent payments would have caused another $428,732,324.56 in losses if successful.

Jason explains why trusts are legitimate planning tools, why fake payment documents are criminal evidence, how IRS-CI proved the case through records and interviews, and what taxpayers should do before a questionable refund claim becomes a DOJ case.

Key Takeaways

  • A trust is legitimate only when the records, control, income, payments, and tax reporting match reality.
  • A refund claim must be based on a real payment, credit, withholding, or overpayment.
  • The line between civil tax risk and criminal exposure is often the fabricated document.
  • IRS-CI cases are built through records: checks, vouchers, transcripts, returns, bank records, and statements.
  • If IRS-CI is involved, privilege matters before the taxpayer tries to explain the facts.
  • Large refund claims should be reviewed before filing, especially when trusts, payroll tax vouchers, or credits are involved.

Resources Mentioned

Disclaimer 

This video is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice. Viewing this video does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and The Law Office of Jason Carr, PLLC. The discussion is based on publicly available information and is not a complete analysis of any person’s legal rights, defenses, tax obligations, or case facts. Any commentary about what a taxpayer, business owner, or advisor “should have done” is general educational discussion only and may not apply to your situation. If you have a specific legal or tax question, consult a qualified attorney or tax professional licensed in your jurisdiction.

Comment Policy

Please do not post confidential, sensitive, or personally identifiable tax information in the comments. We do not provide individualized legal or tax advice in the comments or social media replies.

SPEAKER_00

You're listening to Final Notice. Real tax cases exposed with Jason Carr. Each week we break down real Department of Justice tax fraud prosecutions and reveal what should have been done to avoid them. And now here's your host, Jason Carr.

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$1 million from a fake trust refund, $2 million in restitution, and a failed attempt that, if it had worked, would have cost the IRS another $428 million. Today's case is about Queen Naja, also known as Renata Winifred Ince and Naja Talibah Zaheer. Court records from the Middle District of Alabama show that Naja was charged with conspiracy to commit male fraud under 18 USC Section 1349. On April 15, 2026, a federal judge sentenced her to 165 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered her to pay $2,065,797.26 in restitution. That is almost 14 years. The court case involved a plan to use a legal trust, false tax documents, and a fraudulent payment to make the IRS issue a refund that nobody was entitled to receive. The refund check was not small. It was $1,010,561.26. And the court found that the conduct did not stop there. It included false returns and fraudulent payments tied to refunds issued to Naja's mother, plus additional attempted fraudulent payments that, if successful, would have caused another $428,732,324.56 in losses to the IRS. Let that number sit for a second. $428,000. That's not an aggressive refund position. That is a financial fantasy with a routing number. According to court records and trial evidence, the scheme started in April 2021 when Naja contacted Quentin Diego Sturgeon through social media. Sturgeon was in Montgomery, Alabama. Naja was in Pennsylvania. The plan was simple in structure, even if the paperwork was dressed up. Create a trust, submit false tax documents, file a fraudulent payment, then make it look like the trust had overpaid taxes and was due a refund. The indictment and court documents alleged that Nause caused a fake check for $1 million and a payroll tax voucher to be mailed to the IRS. Sturgeon then submitted tax forms showing a payroll tax overpayment, and the IRS issued a refund check for over $1 million. That's the trick in this case. The trust was the costume, the fake payment was the engine, the refund claim was the payout. The IRS system is built to process millions of returns, payments, vouchers, credits, overpayments, and refund claims each year. If you create paperwork that appears to show a payment was made and then filed documents claiming an overpayment, the system may issue a refund before the fraud is fully unwound. But that does not make the scheme clever, it just makes it temporary. Trial evidence also showed that Sturgeon, during his plea, admitted his role in the scheme and acknowledged using proceeds to purchase high value personal items, including a Mercedes-Benz. That's usually how these cases become easier to prove. Money comes in, lifestyle follows, records follow both. So what made this criminal? Not the trust. Trusts are legitimate planning tools. They're used every day for estate planning, asset management, privacy, probate avoidance, and tax administration. Not the refund claim by itself either. Taxpayers can claim refunds. Sometimes refunds are large. Businesses can overpay, trusts can have filing obligations. The line was the false payment. The court record reflects that the scheme involved false tax documents and a fraudulent payment designed to generate a refund that the conspirators were not entitled to receive. And that's the big difference here. A tax position can be wrong, a filing can be mistaken, and a trust can be misunderstood. But when the documents are fabricated to make the IRS believe money was paid when it was not, the case is moved from tax administration into criminal fraud. That is the line. This case had a paper trail built into the scheme. Court records identify the key pieces, a fake $1 million check, a payroll tax voucher, trust-related tax form showing an overpayment, and the resulting treasury refund check. Then there was the money. The IRS issued a treasury check for $1,010,561.26. Sturgeon admitted that proceeds were used for high value personal items, including the Mercedes Pins I mentioned earlier. The court later found that refund money tied to Naja's mother was used in part to buy a house where Naja lived for several years while continuing the fraudulent activity. And then there was the interview. IRS CI agents went to Naja's home in York, Pennsylvania in September 2024. Court documents indicate that she asked how they knew they were speaking with the right person because there were many queen Najas. She also said she was expecting the IRS because she had the gift of sight. That is the kind of detail a jury remembers. The agents read her the standard non custodial IRS rights warning, including that she did not have to answer questions, that what she said could be used against her, and that she could seek the assistance of an attorney before responding. She spoke with him. Later, she tried to suppress those statements. The magistrate judge denied that motion, finding the statements voluntary and free of coercion. That interview matters because although IRS CIA cases are built through records, they often become trial cases through the taxpayer's own explanations. The one document that mattered most here was probably the fake million dollar payment. Court records describe a fake check for one million dollars in a payroll tax voucher mailed to the IRS. That document mattered because it created the false premise for the refund claim. Without a supposed payment, there's no overpayment. Without an overpayment, there's no refund. And without the refund, there's no million dollar treasury check. A fake payment document is not a tax strategy. It's the foundation of the fraud. The tax rule behind this case is simple. Refunds come from real overpayments. If a taxpayer, business, or trust pays more taxes than it owes, the tax system allows a refund claim. But the payment has to be real. The withholding has to be real. The credit has to be real, and the refund claim has to match economic reality. Federal tax law treats false tax documents seriously. 26 USC Section 7206 makes it a felony to willfully make a return or other document under penalties of perjury that the filer does not believe is true and correct as to every material matter, and it also covers willfully assisting or advising the preparation or presentation of a materially false tax document. This case was charged as conspiracy to commit mail fraud, but the tax lesson is the same. If you create false documents to make the IRS issue money, the paperwork is the crime scene. There is an old tax crimes principle that fits this case. Prosecutors look for affirmative facts, false documents, fake checks, false vouchers, refund claims that depend on invented facts. That's a recurring pattern. It's the same basic boundary we see in tax cases again and again. A wrong filing creates an IRS problem. A fabricated document creates an evidence problem. And once the government can put that document in front of a jury, the case is no longer about confusion. It's about intent. At this point there were two paths. Path one, if there was a legitimate trust issue, file accurate trust returns, keep clean records, document real payments, and resolve any IRS account problems through normal channels. If a refund was denied or delayed, respond through counsel and use the administrative process. Path two was to create a false payment, claim an overpayment that did not exist, take the treasury check, and then try to explain the paper trail later. The second path gave prosecutors a story. The fake check, the voucher, the refund, the Mercedes, the house, the interview. That is the case. If Queen Nausea had walked into my office before this happened, the first sentence would have been, do not file anything else. When a tax issue involves trusts, refund claims, large dollar amounts, and documents that may not match reality, the priority is control. Stop the filings, stop the communications, stop creating new exhibits. Then we would separate three questions. First, is there a real tax position? If there is a legitimate trust, we identify the trustee, beneficiaries, tax classification, EIN, income, deductions, payments, credits, and filing history. Trusts are not magic boxes. They have rules. They have accounting, and they have fiduciary duties. And for tax purposes, the IRS wants to know who earned the income, who paid the tax, and who is entitled to the refund. Second, is there a real payment? This is where this case turns. If the refund claim depends on a payment, withholding, or credit, we need bank records, IRS transcripts, payment confirmations, and supporting documents. If the payment was not real, the claim cannot go forward. Third, has anything else already been filed? If false documents have already gone to the IRS, the strategy changes. Now we're talking about exposure analysis, potential corrective filings, civil resolution of available, and privilege. This is where taxpayers should be talking to a tax attorney before they talk casually to accountants, bookkeepers, relatives, co-conspirators, IRS personnel, such was the case here, or anyone else. Because once IRSCI is involved, the conversation is different. As mentioned earlier, the court record in this case includes a suppression fight over statements Naja made during the IRS CI interview at her home. The courts found the agents identified themselves as IRSCI special agents, read her the non-custodial rights warning, and that she agreed to speak with them. And that's why privilege matters. Taxpayers often think they can explain their way out of a criminal tax problem. Sometimes they can make it worse in the first ten minutes. And I think that's what happened here. The better move is to get counsel in place, collect the records, determine what is true, determine what is false, and decide whether there is a civil correction path left. That can mean amended filings, withdrawal of improper claims, repayment, penalty mitigation, or a structured disclosure strategy depending on the facts. You want the IRS problem solved while it's still an IRS problem. You do not want it becoming a DOJ problem. The lesson in this case is straightforward. Trusts are not shields for fake refunds. Payment vouchers are not wish lists, and the IRS does not have to accept a million-dollar document just because someone put it in the mail. The crime usually starts where the records stop telling the truth. If you're a taxpayer or business owner dealing with a large refund claim, a trust filing, a payroll tax record, or any IRS issue involving documents that do not match reality, fix the problem before the records become evidence. I'm Jason Carr, Tax Attorney. If you want to make sure you never end up on this podcast, you know where to find me. Cartaxlaw.com. Link is in the show notes. This has been Final Notice Real Tax Cases Exposed.

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