Covid-19 crime in Massachusetts.
Precious passport; in fact, she is Kenyan.
A Canton woman was sentenced to 44 months in federal prison yesterday for her role as a sort of banker for an online romance scheme targeting lonely older women and later for filing fake pandemic-relief applications. Read more.
A South Easton man who obtained an $836,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan in 2020 based on a claim his used-car dealership had 40 employees actually had only 3 or 4 workers including himself, so he was able to use the money to buy and move to a new house and buy a Rolls Royce and some French bulldogs - which left him enough to pay up to a 20% kickback to three Florida "recruiters" who got him involved in the scam, the US Attorney's office charges. Read more.
Loc Vo, 55, pleaded guilty this week to one count of wire fraud, admitting to government charges that he used federal aid to help small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic to buy hares in biotech, Web and financial services, electric-car and gaming companies. Read more.
A man whose lawyer says he "reached to dark corners of the Internet" when the pandemic hit and he lost his good paying job at Chrysler was sentenced yesterday to 30 months in federal prison and ordered to repay the $269,465 he got from 12 different states by using other people's IDs and bogus company information to get pandemic unemployment insurance and payroll help, the US Attorney's office in Boston reports. Read more.
The Attorney General's office is investigating a pop-up company it says received more than $15 million in state funds for eight million face masks, bought several million, then never delivered any of them to Massachusetts. Read more.
A man the feds call "a purported Orthodox Christian monk" and his live-in lawyer were arrested today on charges they defrauded the government out of $3.6 million in Covid relief funds by filing bogus applications filled with lies about how many employees they had to obtain money that they then used to upgrade the properties they already owned and to buy a new one, rather than using the money to keep employing workers they did not, in fact, have. Read more.
A Brockton man who claimed a total of 60 employees spread among companies he allegedly ran in Massachusetts, Wyoming and Alaska was charged with wire fraud today in Boston federal court - and promptly agreed to plead guilty. Read more.
A Brighton man who operates Boston-area food trucks used more than $1.5 million in federal pandemic-relief funds to bet on the stock market, rather than on paying workers and other steps to keep his business afloat, the US Attorney's office charges, in a wire-fraud complaint filed in Boston federal court yesterday. Read more.
A federal judge ruled today the Massachusetts Lottery Commission had the right to bar Ricardo Mazzarino from entering any of the $1-million drawings it held last year to encourage people to get Covid-19 shots. Read more.
The Dorchester Reporter reports the man charged at the mayor after police said they would be taking away his bullhorn, so they took him down to the ground before arresting him. It's at least the second time Shawn Nelson has been arrested in a Covid protest.
A former Saugus resident who now lives in Boca Raton, FL got a $2.5 million Payroll Protection Plan loan through a fraudulent application and used the money on cars, a new house and buying cryptocurrency, rather than supporting the 154 employees he didn't actually have, the US Attorney's office in Boston charges. Read more.
A federal judge yesterday sentenced Lily Nguyen to two years in federal prison for her part in a scheme to grab the personal information of more than 100 people to create bogus accounts on the Massachusetts pandemic unemployment portal, the US Attorney's office reports. Read more.
Surveillance photos via TPD.
Transit Police have released photos of a guy they say responded to being barred from a bus at the Massachusetts Avenue stop for refusing to put on a mask by kicking the bus door, causing a a spider-web crack that forced the bus out of service. Read more.
A Dorchester woman who can often be found in the morning yelling outside Mayor Wu's house in Roslindale switched things up yesterday and tried to interrupt a City Hall press conference about Marathon preparations - only to get arrested on charges of assault and battery on a police officer and disrupting the peace, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. Read more.
A federal judge yesterday sentenced a Stoneham man to three years in prison and ordered him to repay the $526,423 the government says he stole from the state pandemic unemployment fund using other people's purloined ID information, the US Attorney's office reports. Read more.
From a pizzeria owner charged with getting bogus pandemic loans to become a gentleman alpaca farmer in Vermont to the New Jersey comedian who tried some funny business with Massachusetts pandemic unemployment assistance, the US Attorney's office in Boston has been busy over the past couple of years with prosecutions for various pandemic related frauds. Here are some of the cases: Read more.
A federal jury today convicted Elijah Majak Buoi, 40, on four counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to a financial institution, the US Attorney's office reports. Read more.
A federal judge yesterday sentenced Shane Spierdowis, 31, of Hull, to two years in federal prison for collecting pandemic economic funds he had no right to - because they were based on shell companies, and he claimed money for a period that included the time he was in prison for violating probation on an earlier securities-fraud conviction. Read more.
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