In this weeks Podcast, part of the discussion centered around the potential for fraud in the Payroll Protection loan program. Ken Klein passed along this news article as a followup to that discussion.

Law 360 posted this week that a Texas man fraudulently tried to score over $5 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans for small businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic by falsely claiming to employ hundreds of people whose identities he invented using an online name generator.  Samuel Yates was arrested Tuesday and faces charges of wire fraud, bank fraud, false statements to a financial institution and false statements to the SBA, prosecutors said.

Yates is not the first to be charged with pandemic-related loan fraud. Earlier this month, prosecutors charged two New England businessmen with lying on their bank applications for PPP loans. David A. Staveley, 52, of Massachusetts, and David Butziger, 51, of Rhode Island, sought a total of more than $500,000 in relief to pay employees at businesses that were either fictitious, closed or owned by someone else. Staveley is charged with aggravated identity theft and Butziger is charged with bank fraud. Both men also face conspiracy charges, court records show.

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