By Freddy Graves
It sounds like there was a lot of money to be made from Covid, at least according to investigation reports from the VA’s Office of Inspector General. Unfortunately for certain thieves, however, the OIG was all over them when the scams were revealed. The head thief in one case was a part-time pastor who was nailed on four counts of wire fraud for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) scams. He devised a scheme to apply for loans that were supposed to be used for payroll and business expenses during the Covid downturns. Not only that, but he approached and then coached church members (one of them a VA employee) on how to apply for the “free money” funds, including pretending they had actual businesses to run.
He then taught them how to apply for loan forgiveness (which was a bonus of the program if funds were actually used to pay employees) so they wouldn’t have to pay the money back. All they had to do, it seems, was to follow his instructions. It helped that he worked for a Small Business Administration-approved lender … and split the money with him.
Part of their downfall came from inflating income figures from a real tax return — which did not indicate that there was any kind of business income at all, not realizing that it would be a simple matter for one government agency to speak to another agency to verify facts. Another mistake was leaving a paper trail of emails wherein he instructed one of his church members on the steps to take to apply for the loans.
When sentenced, the pastor could get 20 years for each count of wire fraud. One coconspirator (who did not own a business) could get 60 years — 20 for each of three counts. The other (who also did not own a business but had a great paper trail
of how-to instruction emails for applying for the fraudulent loans) is cooperating and likely won’t see any jail time.
(c) 2026 King Features Synd., Inc
