Four people, including one from Massachusetts, have been charged with allegedly being involved in a multi-state scheme to receive millions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) money for themselves and others by submitting fake applications to PPP lenders.
According to a press statement from the Massachusetts Department of Justice, the following people have been indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud:
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- Sniders Jean-Jacques, 38, of Miami;
- Lorne Johnson, 38, of Boston;
- Tanya Pierre, 28, of Miami; and
- Ashley Spike, 31, of Miramar, Fla.
Jean-Jacques and Pierre were arrested and presented in federal court in Miami. Johnson was arrested and arraigned in federal court in Boston. Spike was arrested and appeared in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The defendants will appear in federal court in Boston on a later date.
According to the charge documents, Jean-Jacques, Johnson, Pierre, and Spike allegedly submitted fake PPP applications on borrowers’ behalf and received up to 30% of the loan revenues as a fee for securing the loans. Beginning in March 2021, the defendants and others reportedly recruited ineligible borrowers for PPP loans, claimed the borrowers owned businesses that qualified them , and generated false tax paperwork to support the borrowers’ fraudulent applications. As a result, Jean-Jacques, Johnson, Pierre, Spike, and others allegedly received around $7 million in PPP funding to which neither they nor the borrowers were entitled. The indictment further says that borrowers who got PPP funding based on these false applications paid kickbacks to Jean-Jacques, Johnson, Pierre, Spike, and others, typically equal to 30% of the loan revenues.
In a second indictment, Jean-Jacques and Pierre were charged with conspiring to commit wire and bank fraud in connection with a plot to obtain mortgage loans and apartment leases.
The accusation of conspiracy to commit wire fraud carries a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine, or double the scheme’s gross gain or loss, whichever is larger. A federal district court judge imposes sentences based on the United States Sentencing Guidelines and the legislation that governs sentence determination in criminal cases.
The announcement was made by United States Attorney Leah Foley; Thomas Demeo, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, Boston Field Office; Amaleka McCall-Brathwaite, Special Agent in Charge of the Small Business Administration, Office of Inspector General, Eastern Region; and Randy Maloney, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service, Boston Field Office. Kristen Kearney, Assistant United States Attorney for the Securities, Financial, and Cyber Fraud Unit, is prosecuting the case.
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to pool the Department of Justice’s resources in collaboration with other government agencies to improve efforts to combat and prevent pandemic fraud. The Task Force helps investigate and prosecute the most responsible criminals, both in the U.S. and abroad, and supports agencies that manage relief programs to stop fraud by improving coordination, finding resources and methods to detect fraudsters and their schemes, and sharing information from past enforcement actions. To learn more about the Department’s response to the epidemic, visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.
To report allegations of COVID-19 fraud, contact the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or use the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
Please note that the details in the charging document are only allegations. The defendants are deemed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
