JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Dozens in Florida, including several people in Jacksonville, are paying the price after they were accused of misusing COVID-19 loans.
A government list released recently had 89 names of people federal investigators say took money from the federal government during the pandemic and didn’t use it how they said they would.
Since the list was sent out by the US Attorney on Monday, more names have been added.
“Now the list has 94 names because we have charged another five cases,” told US Attorney Roger Handberg.
Federal investigators with the US Attorney’s Office say more than $84 million is believed to be fraudulently used.
“You look at these simpler schemes and you wonder how people thought they were going to keep this money forever,” said Michael Walfield, Assistant Special Agent in Charge with IRS Criminal Investigations.
Walfield said some of the claims were head-scratching.
“It was a claim that it was a necessary expense to pay off gambling losses to talk to clients, the jury didn’t believe that made any sense,” he said.
Walfield was part of the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force which was made up of multiple agencies who tracked down people they say were defrauding the government and costing you money.
“Ultimately it is either the banks or the taxpayers or both that pay this money and as a business owner that is often recouped through the taxpayer,” Walfield said.
The people on the list include six people from Jacksonville who are accused of fraud.
They were tracked down by the task force formed in March 2020 consisting of multiple government agencies that followed receipts.
US Attorney Roger Handberg is going after every one of them.
“We often see the real egregious aspects of these cases in the spending because a lot of time the spending is on luxury cars, luxury homes,” he said.
That can be said for Kenneth Landers, who is the founder of a nonprofit called the American Veteran Service Project, according to court records.
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He was found guilty of abusing the payroll protection program, which gave money out to prop up businesses during the pandemic.
PPP was commonly one of the most abused programs.
Landers instead spent some of the money on a 1970 Jaguar XKE roadster.
That was just $80,000 or so of the $900,000 the court ordered him to forfeit.
“We saw people who were taking businesses that were defunct or did not have the revenues they claim to have or the employees they claim to have and use those to get loans,” he said.
Handberg expects to see more cases like this as they continue to track down the COVID relief funding.
“It is galling that there are individuals out there that took advantage of that historic situation and try to line their own pockets. My message is we are continuing to work on these cases, turning over every rock. If we can find the perpetrators of this fraud we are going to bring these cases to justice,” Handberg said.
According to a press release sent by the US Attorney’s Office, the COVID-19 Task Force consisted of the United States Attorney’s Office’s (USAO-MDFL) Criminal, Asset Recovery, Appellate, and Civil Divisions, along with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
Investigators say the systems that were schemed were the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”), Economic Injury Disaster Loans (“EIDL”), Unemployment Insurance (“UI”), the Main Street Lending Program (“MSLP”), the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (“ERAP”).
So far, 67 of the listed people have been found guilty and 27 others are currently being prosecuted, according to the US Attorney’s Office.