A Maine man pleaded guilty on Monday in U.S. District Court in Portland to filing fraudulent applications for over $215,000 COVID-19 relief loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine announced.
In court records, federal prosecutors alleged that 49-year-old Frederick Avery of North Berwick submitted two fraudulent applications for PPP loans between April 2020 and September 2021.
On the loan applications, Avery claimed to be the owner of a travel agency, Superior Cruise and Travel LLC, despite having sold the agency to an LLC in Pennsylvania in November 2019, prosecutors alleged.
The loans, which totaled more than $215,000, were purportedly for the travel agency’s payroll, lease and mortgage interest, utilities and other expenses.
It was further alleged that Avery submitted false bank statements from a non-existent bank account in order to support one of his fraudulent PPP loan applications.
After pleading guilty, Avery now faces up to 30 years in prison and a maximum fine of $1 million.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="29354 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=29354">2 Comments
According to the gubmint’s Pandemic Oversight website 11.5 million loans were granted totaling $793 billion. This Maine fraud case will only be one of many but we’ll likely never recover the taxpayer’s (your) money with their “investigators” doing the investigating.
The whole program was a boondoggle. Much of the money did NOT go to paychecks and banks made good fees. Shrink government.