A Mid-City Los Angeles woman has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for a pandemic-relief scheme that took in more than $2 million.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Casie Hynes, 39, took more than $2.25 million in government loans offered due to the COVID-19 pandemic and tried to get almost $1.3 million more in tax credits from the IRS by submitting false claims.
She pleaded guilty to wire fraud and false claims last year.
In addition to her five-year sentence handed down Thursday, Hynes must repay nearly $2.4 million in restitution.
“The defendant exploited a crisis to line her own pockets, diverting vital relief funds from businesses that needed the money,” acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally said in the release. “The sentence imposed today sends a message to others that you will be held accountable if you steal government relief funds.”
Hynes’ scheme lasted from June 2020 to December 2021, during which she submitted “more than 80 fraudulent applications for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) from banks and the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) in the names of approximately 20 companies,” the release said.
For those companies that had names like the “Nasty Womxn Project and She Suite Collective,” Hynes would claim that she or one of her friends or family members were the owner. Then, prosecutors said, she would falsify information like the number of employees or average monthly payroll, often using “the personal information and signatures of other people without their authorization and even though those people were not involved with the companies.”
“In reliance on Hynes’ fraudulent loan applications, banks and the SBA approved PPP and EIDL loans for the various companies she created and then disbursed the COVID-19 relief funds into bank accounts she controlled and used to pay for her own personal expenses,” the release explained.
If you have tips about possible COVID-19-related fraud, you can call the Justice Department’s National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
