Federal prosecutors say that whereas on employees with the Miami-Dade Police Department, Samuel Harris Jr. obtained greater than $275,000 via fraudulent mortgage purposes submitted to 2 federal packages tied to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Harris is not less than the third present or former South Florida police officer to face a pandemic-loan fraud cost since June 2022. Prosecutors filed the case towards him lower than two months after charging a City of Miami officer with the same scheme.
Submitted via an Atlanta-based lender, Harris’s utility to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) falsely acknowledged that his firm Oregen Digital had ten workers and $50,000 in month-to-month payroll obligations, prosecutors say. He backed up the applying with an allegedly bogus payroll tax type, which helped him safe $125,000 in PPP funds.
Prosecutors allege that Harris secured practically $150,000 in extra authorities cash by falsifying Oregen’s monetary info on a second utility, submitted via a distinct financial institution, for the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.
Oregen, an inactive firm, was reinstated by Harris in June 2020, shortly after the pandemic swept into the U.S. and the federal government enacted the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to offer reduction for companies and workers experiencing pandemic-related hardship.
Harris faces a single rely of wire fraud within the Southern District of Florida — a federal felony that carries a most 20-year sentence. It seems he stepped down from his job with the Miami-Dade Police Department final month.
“An particular person by that identify resigned employment on April 12, 2023,” the division tells New Times.
As beforehand reported by New Times, not less than two different onetime South Florida law enforcement officials have been charged over the previous 11 months with defrauding the federal authorities on pandemic-relief loans.
Jason Carter pleaded responsible in October 2022 to defrauding the EIDL program whereas serving as an officer with the Coral Springs Police Department. He obtained 5 years probation and was ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution and a $5,000 fantastic.
In March, Gregory Dennis was charged with wire fraud for submitting false, inflated monetary info to safe $41,000 in PPP funds whereas he was on employees with the City of Miami police division. Dennis was relieved of responsibility when the cost surfaced, and he resigned from the pressure shortly after pleading responsible in April. His sentencing listening to is scheduled for June.
The FBI Tampa discipline workplace and the inspector normal for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services investigated Carter’s case. Dennis’ case was pursued by the FBI’s Miami Area Corruption Task Force and the Small Business Administration Office of the Inspector General.
South Florida was a hotbed of fraudulent COVID-19 mortgage exercise throughout the top of the pandemic. As of September 2022, South Florida federal prosecutors had seized greater than $23.5 million in stolen funds and prosecuted greater than 80 fraud instances tied to government-backed pandemic-relief loans.
While the COVID-19 outbreak peaked within the U.S. in early 2021, prosecutions over alleged pandemic-era fraud proceed to pour into federal court docket. More than a dozen federal instances have been introduced within the final 30 days with COVID-19-related fraud prices, Department of Justice data present.
Last yr, the Department of Justice introduced it was deciding on its Southern District of Florida department to move up considered one of three nationwide COVID-19 “fraud strike pressure groups.”