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Man who was rejected for Covid-19 payroll help for his five-employee company gets 29 months in prison for the large loan he got when he claimed he had 154 employees
By adamg on Fri, 09/29/2023 - 10:39am
A former Revere man now living in Florida was sentenced this week to 29 months in federal prison for applying for - and getting - a $2.5 million Covid-19 payment for the 154 employees he didn't have in his Massachusetts painting company, the US Attorney's office in Boston reports.
In 2020, Vinicius Santana, 35, had initially applied for a $25,000 Payroll Protection Program loan/grant based on the five employees and $10,000 monthly payroll he said he had for his Complete Home Care, but was rejected. Two weeks later, he submitted another application for the five employees, but claiming an $18,000 monthly payroll, but was again rejected, according to court records.
Santana scored big, however, when he then submitted another application, this time for a $2.5 million loan based on having 154 employees and a monthly payroll of $1 million. For some reason, the lender that had rejected his other, smaller requests accepted this one and transferred the money to him.
In addition to prison time, Santana also has to repay the $2.5 million.
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Comments
"For some reason"
I know of several indy contractors that tried desperately for those much needed funds (and for far FAR less) and we're denied dezpite
Sounds like Vinnie got the inside information that countless other dirtbag business owners received on how to properly steal from the Federal Government.
I'm just curious what the percentage was that he had to kick back and to whom?
These aren't random mistakes or oversights. It was a heist.
Less complicated
The system was designed to throw money out as fast as possible, at a time when the economy was in shock and going down - with the realization there'd be fraud and the idea they'd catch up with them later.
So the government eased back a ton on its normal verification procedures and empowered private lenders to throw money at people via PPP, rather than requiring them to go through the SBC via its existing EIDL system, and it worked: A ton of money went out, the vast majority of people and companies who got the loans used them for legitimate purposes and now the government is going after the actual fraudsters.
The odd thing about this case is that the guy made all of his applications through the same lender, which rejected him for the small loans he originally sought, but then gave him one huge loan when he increased his employee number like 30-fold.