A 30-year-old Houston man who got $1.6 million of Covid-19 relief money through fraudulent Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) loans and spent the money on a Lamborghini sports car, a Ford F-350 pickup truck, a $14,000 Rolex watch, and strip clubs will pay for his joyride with 9 years in prison.
To get the money, he submitted false tax and payroll records for companies that didn’t exist, and used other people’s names, including at least one dead person. The feds recovered $700,000 of the stolen money and confiscated the vehicles and watch. (Read story here.)
His lawyer said he “hopes that others will learn from his reckoning that there is no easy money.”
He’s one of nearly 500 people charged with crimes by federal prosecutors for obtaining PPP loans, intended to help small businesses pay workers during the pandemic shutdowns, under false pretenses and the pocketing the money. People like a 24-year-old North Carolina woman who used a former business that no longer existed to get $150,000 she spent on luxury shopping sprees. She pled guilty to fraud in June 2021 and is awaiting sentencing. (Story here.)