WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th March, 2021) Three defendants face charges of accepting kickbacks for obtaining nearly $1.7 million in COVID-19 aid for more than 300 applicants, many claiming ownership of fake businesses, the US Justice Department said on Tuesday.
"As alleged, [Alicia] Ayers, [Andrea] Ayers, and [Traci] Proctor filed more than 300 online applications on behalf of others that included false information to support their claims. This resulted in nearly $1.7 million worth of payments from the SBA, a portion of which the defendants received in the form of kickbacks," the Justice Department said in a press release.
All three defendants were arrested Tuesday morning with initial court hearings scheduled later in the day, the release said.
In June and July 2020, the defendants used the identities of about 300 other individuals to submit about 315 online applications seeking $3 million from the US Small business Administration (SBA), the release said. The submissions falsely represented that the applicants were the owners of businesses with ten or more employees, it pointed out.
The Justice Department said not only did the applications falsely report numbers of employees, the vast majority of the purported businesses appear not to have existed at all. The SBA disbursed about $1,690,000 to the applicants, who then kicked back a portion of the payments to the defendants, according to the release, it added.
The defendants face charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, with a maximum sentence of 20 years, making false statements to investigators and aggravated identity theft, according to the release.
