Charleston, West Virginia.After confessing to defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) of over $20,000 in COVID-19 relief loans, a St. Albans woman was sentenced Friday to five years of federal probation and forced to pay $25,830 in restitution. In order to help suffering businesses during the epidemic, the PPP was created under the CARES Act.
In 2021, Jessica Nutter, 39, submitted fake information to the Small Business Administration (SBA) and a Texas lender in order to fraudulently receive two PPP loans. Nutter claimed to have run Nut House Wood, a business, with $50,000 in gross income in 2019, according to court filings, despite the fact that the company had never been registered or been involved in legal commercial operations. Under false pretenses that her husband had made $50,000 working as an independent contractor for an online food delivery firm, she also filed a separate loan application in his name.
According to the prosecution, the Texas lender accepted both applications and deposited $10,415 into the Nutters’ personal bank accounts for each loan. Nutter used some of the money on ordinary household bills and a family trip. She acknowledged in court that the money was obtained fraudulently and that the two companies listed in the applications were fake.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office looked into the case as part of a larger investigation into fraud related to the epidemic. According to U.S. Attorney Will Thompson, these money were meant to help respectable companies and employees at an extraordinary moment of need.
The COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which was created in 2021 by the Department of Justice to investigate fraud concerning federal pandemic assistance programs, includes Nutter’s case. Authorities urged anyone with knowledge of such schemes to contact the National Center for Disaster Fraud at the Department.
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