SPOKANE, Wash. – United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington Vanessa R. Waldref announced that a federal grand jury has returned two additional charges concerning the fraudulent COVID-19 relief funding.
President Joe Biden signed the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act into law. The CARES Act provided several programs to eligible small businesses with requests for relief funding and was aimed to help mitigate the economic impacts of the pandemic.
The two programs involved in these charges were the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) program, which offered forgivable loans to eligible small businesses in order to retain or rehire employees who lost their jobs or were in danger of doing so, due to the pandemic.
The other was the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, which provided low-interest loans that could be deferred until the conclusion of the pandemic to provide “bridge” funding for small businesses to maintain their operations during shutdowns and other economic circumstances caused by the pandemic.
The first indictment which was part of the United States v. Crawford charged Antonio Feliciano Crawford of Mead, Wash. with 30 counts of wire fraud, bank fraud and false claims arising from PPP and EIDL applications submitted during 2020 and 2021 from four companies purportedly owned and operated by Crawford. Which include Tann LLC, Crawford Entertainment, A&M Personal Training LLC, and a sole proprietorship doing business as “Antonio Crawford.”
The indictment alleges that Crawford submitted false information and documentation that included fictitious and fraudulent tax returns and had obtained at least $186,971 in PPP and EIDL funding for which he was not eligible.
The second case deals with the indictment of Cheryl Lynn Oberg of Spokane, Wash. who participated in a fraud scheme and conspiracy in which Oberg obtained $150,000 in EIDL funding based on a fraudulent application submitted in the name of a periodontal business in Mississippi with which Oberg had no involvement.
The Indictment alleges that, while the Mississippi-based business did exist, the application was fraudulent, was submitted without the knowledge of the business, and the EIDL funds went to Oberg, who distributed some of the funds to co-conspirators, and used the remainder to fully pay off an outstanding loan on her vehicle.
The Indictment further alleges that Oberg lied to FBI investigators when questioned about the scheme.
“COVID-19 relief programs were designed to provide a lifeline to struggling businesses during the pandemic,” stated U.S. Attorney Waldref. “Due to the number of people and businesses that requested funding, some deserving businesses were not able to obtain funding to keep their business in operation.”
The charges against Crawford carry a maximum of up to 30 years in federal prison, while the charges against Oberg carry a maximum of 20 years.
