Mays Landing Woman Admits to Conspiring to Defraud The IRS

CAMDEN, N.J. – A Mays Landing woman admitted to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service by filing false employment tax returns that concealed a company’s cash payroll, Acting U.S. Attorney and Special Attorney Alina Habba announced.

Denise Davis, 52, of Mays Landing, New Jersey, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Karen M. Williams in Camden federal court to an information charging her with one count of conspiring to defraud the IRS.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

Davis worked at Davis Brothers Chimney Sweep & Masonry (“Davis Brothers”), a business located in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, owned by Davis’s spouse.  Davis admitted that between January 1, 2018 and April 30, 2024, she conspired with Henry Collins, the business’s bookkeeper, to defraud the IRS.  As part of the conspiracy, Collins utilized a commercial check casher to negotiate a substantial amount of Davis Brothers’s gross receipts checks.  Collins used some of the resulting cash to pay himself and other Davis Brothers employees in cash.  Collins provided the rest of the cash to Davis and her spouse.  Davis and Collins then provided false and misleading information to the business’s outside accounting firm that resulted in the preparation and filing of false payroll tax returns that omitted the employees paid in cash and their cash wages.  Davis also admitted that she failed to file individual income tax returns for herself and her spouse during the same time period.  Davis admitted that the conspiracy resulted in a tax loss of approximately $1.18 million.

The count of conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.  Sentencing is scheduled for February 4, 2026.

Collins previously pleaded guilty for his role in the conspiracy and is scheduled to be sentenced in December 2025.

Acting U.S. Attorney and Special Attorney Habba credited special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Jenifer Piovesan in Newark, with the investigation leading to today’s guilty plea.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Bender of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Camden.

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Defense counsel: Michele Finizio, Esq., Moorestown, New Jersey