Brighton food-truck operator gets two years in prison after admitting he got $1.5 million in Covid funds he didn't deserve

A federal judge this week sentenced Loc Vo, 56, of Brighton, to two years behind bars following his admission that he used much of the $1.5 million he got in federal Covid-relief funds to invest in a stocks rather than the food-truck and publishing-tech companies he claimed he would use the money to support.

US District Court Judge William Young agreed with prosecutors, who called for the sentence after Vo pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud earlier this year.

Vo's attorneys, while acknowledging their client done wrong, pleaded for just a one-year sentence, arguing that Vo, who returned to Brighton from his native Vietnam to help rebuild the food-truck business his mother had run into the ground, was well meaning, if illegally so.

In addition to the prison sentence, Young ordered Vo to repay the $1.5 million in Paycheck Protection Plan, Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund money he applied for in 2020 and 2021, ostensibly to pay for rent, mortgage interest, payroll and utilities at his Smart Gourmet food-truck venture and a Maryland publishing company that he used to own but which had gone defunct by the time the pandemic hit.

In a sentencing memorandum to the judge, prosecutors wrote:

The Defendant took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to divert emergency relief funds for his own personal use. His scheme was deliberate and calculated - he applied for and received five different COVID-19 loans. The fraud was not a momentary lapse in judgement - he submitted five different applications over a one-year period. And each time he received the relief funds, he chose to transfer those funds to his personal investment accounts.

The Defendant undertook this scheme despite appearing to be both financially stable and highly educated. While the defendant has undoubtedly faced challenges immigrating to this country, he also unquestionably achieved success - he obtained a bachelor's degree in economics from Yale University. He has worked in several different professions, including finance, international trading, book-publishing and most recently, food services. By his own admission, he has an exceptionally high IQ of over 130, which has ensured, coupled with an Ivy-league degree, tremendous potential. And he does not suffer from any type of addiction. In short, the simple motivation for this crime appears to have been greed. There is no other innocent explanation for receiving COVID relief funds and then repeatedly choosing to transfer those founds into personal investment accounts and then speculating on different stocks.

In their sentencing memorandum, Vo's attorneys chronicled this history and hardships of the family food-truck business, which started by selling fresh Vietnamese food at and near MIT in 1989, which ended with the family breaking up and Vo returning here from Vietnam, to which he had returned, to try to salvage.

In 2018 and 2019, the business became cash positive partly due to Mr. Vo's strategy of reducing unit costs through massive bulk purchasing, a strategy that would devastate him in the pandemic. In the spring of 2020, Smart Gourmet and its food service operation, like so many restaurants and food service operations everywhere, took a massive blow and essentially shut down. His business model particularly relied on large crowds, which were no longer possible. His bulk purchases of ingredients and supplies became massive losses in the unexpected pandemic. His business suffered a second major blow when Harvard's announcement of a major real estate development, building a road through where his kitchen operated, effectively ended his kitchen lease of 10 years. His brother Chon Vo writes of the emotional devastation Loc experienced with the onset of the pandemic and its destruction of the business, along with the Harvard lease termination. Chon has noted in a conversation with counsel that Loc simply refused to give up on the business. He remembers telling Loc, "Maybe God meant for you to do something else," but his brother could not let go of this enterprise that had come to define him.

Mr. Vo applied for and took the pandemic relief funds that are the gravamen of this case in hopes of being able to resurrect the business and keep paying some of his workers. He certainly did this the wrong way and he broke the law in doing so. The explanation is not intended to be an excuse. He was not entitled to the funds he received and he never should have transferred the funds to his investment accounts. But it is nonetheless true that he spent some of the funds on business purposes. A cursory examination by undersigned counsel of business invoices and receipts from Smart Gourmet showed that in 2020 and 2021 Mr. Vo was spending money on things like rent for his kitchen, to the tune of approximately $12,000 a month, dishwashing equipment, and repairs to one of the company vehicles.