LONDON, Ky. – A Harlan, Ky., man, David Christopher Lewis, 49, was sentenced to 33 months in federal jail on Thursday, by U.S. District Choose Robert E. Wier, after pleading responsible to wire fraud, for acquiring Paycheck Safety Program loans below false pretenses.
In accordance with his plea settlement, in Might 2020, Lewis submitted two fraudulent functions for Paycheck Safety Program (PPP) loans on behalf of Bubba Fest, LLC and Elite Artists Company, LLC. Each companies associated to a “comedian con”-style occasion known as Bubba Fest that Lewis had organized in prior years. The Paycheck Safety Program was created as a part of the CARES Act, a legislation handed in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Paycheck Safety Program loans had been designed to supply an incentive for small companies to maintain employees on their payroll throughout the pandemic; these loans could be forgiven by the US Small Enterprise Administration, if the borrower established that mortgage proceeds had been used for payroll, hire, or different permitted enterprise bills. The quantity of the mortgage was depending on the enterprise’s payroll.
As a part of his fraudulent PPP mortgage functions, Lewis offered the financial institution, First State Financial institution of the Southeast, with faux tax paperwork and payroll data misrepresenting the companies’ variety of staff and payroll bills. Consequently, he obtained fraudulent a PPP mortgage for every enterprise totaling $370,000. Proof admitted at Lewis’s sentencing listening to established that between Might 26 and August 28, 2020, Lewis paid himself or his spouse greater than $100,000 of the PPP mortgage cash. In his plea settlement, Lewis additionally admitted to obstructing the FBI’s investigation of his crime by offering a sworn affidavit that lied concerning the existence and whereabouts of the companies’ employment and payroll data.
Beneath federal legislation, Lewis should serve at the very least 85 p.c of his jail sentence. Upon his launch from jail, he will likely be below the supervision of the U.S. Probation Workplace for 3 years. Along with the time period of imprisonment, Lewis was ordered to pay $370,000 in restitution to First State Financial institution of the Southeast.
Carlton S. Shier, IV, United States Lawyer for the Japanese District of Kentucky, and Jodi Cohen, Particular Agent in Cost, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Louisville Subject Workplace collectively introduced the sentence. The investigation was carried out by the FBI. The USA was represented by Assistant U.S. Lawyer Paul McCaffrey.
On Might 17, 2021, the Lawyer Common established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Process Pressure to marshal the sources of the Division of Justice in partnership with companies throughout authorities to boost efforts to fight and stop pandemic-related fraud. The Process Pressure bolsters efforts to research and prosecute probably the most culpable home and worldwide legal actors and assists companies tasked with administering reduction packages to stop fraud by, amongst different strategies, augmenting and incorporating current coordination mechanisms, figuring out sources and methods to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing info and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For extra info on the Division’s response to the pandemic, please go to https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus
Anybody with details about allegations of tried fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Division of Justice’s Nationwide Middle for Catastrophe Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or through the NCDF Net Criticism Type at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
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