BATON ROUGE – A married Louisiana couple face felony charges for a scheme to steal tens of thousands of dollars in fraudulent state tax refunds.

Investigators with the Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR) say William T. Lewis (Booking Photo) and Jill A. Lewis (Booking Photo), both of Madisonville, submitted false amended state income tax returns claiming wages and withholding from a nonexistent employer. The false amended returns were for the years 2021 through 2024, years for which the couple had submitted tax returns previously and received refunds. Their alleged “double dipping” resulted in the theft of $50,700 in fraudulent refunds and the attempted theft of an additional $32,113.

William and Jill Lewis were arrested by authorities in Osceola County, Florida in March and transported to Louisiana. Each was booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, on 11 counts of filing false public records, 11 counts of computer fraud, nine counts of theft and two counts of attempted theft. They are the 79^th and 80^th persons arrested under a joint anti-tax fraud initiative of the Louisiana Department of Revenue and the state attorney general’s office.