Pandemic Darlings The pandemic economy, in original documents
Home Articles An Archdiocese Official's Fake Contractors, Then $2.1 Million in Pandemic Loans

Articles · Courts and enforcement

Reported article

An Archdiocese Official's Fake Contractors, Then $2.1 Million in Pandemic Loans

Kenneth Gaughan, 44, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced in September 2022 to 78 months in prison, later reduced to 70, for two separate financial schemes: embezzling more than $438,000 from the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, and fraudulently obtaining more than $2.1 million in Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan funds.1

Pandemic Darlings · Published

Gaughan, who used the alias Richard Strauski, pleaded guilty on March 2, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to three counts: one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering in the PPP/EIDL case, and one count of wire fraud in the Archdiocese case. Judge Tanya S. Chutkan sentenced him, ordering three years of supervised release following his prison term and restitution in an amount to be determined.1

In the pandemic-loan case, D.D.C. No. 1:20-cr-00128-TSC, he pleaded guilty to Count One, wire fraud, and Count Eleven, money laundering; in the Archdiocese case, No. 1:21-cr-00390-TSC, to Count Eight, wire fraud. Judge Chutkan imposed 78 months on each count, to run concurrently. On August 12, 2025, she reduced the sentence to 70 months under the Sentencing Commission's 2023 adjustment for zero-point offenders; Gaughan had asked for 63.2

From at least March through August 2020, Gaughan sought more than $2.7 million in PPP loans for nine companies that purported to register emotional support animals, and received about $2.1 million in PPP and EIDL funds. He spent part of it on a 33-foot yacht, a 2020 Kia Stinger and a rowhouse in Northeast Washington; DOJ put their values at $300,000, $46,000 and $1.13 million. He was arrested in both cases on August 11, 2020.1

According to Gaughan's guilty plea, he began working for the Archdiocese of Washington in 2008 as its Director of Counseling and was later promoted to Assistant Superintendent. In that role he recruited and served as point of contact for outside contractors serving the roughly 95 Catholic schools the Archdiocese oversaw in Maryland and Washington. Beginning around June 2010 and continuing through April 2018, Gaughan caused the Archdiocese to pay invoices he manufactured for anti-bullying and crisis-intervention programs and messaging software, concealing his ownership of three companies (including by filing forms under an alias) and depositing the resulting checks into virtual and private mailboxes he controlled.1

IRS Criminal Investigation's Washington field office, the FBI's Baltimore field office, and the SBA's Office of Inspector General's Eastern Region investigated the case.1

Documents cited

Notes

  1. U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, "District Man Sentenced to 78 Months in Prison for Schemes to Defraud Small Business Pandemic Relief Programs and the Archdiocese of Washington" (original). ↩1 ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
  2. United States v. Gaughan, D.D.C. Nos. 1:21-cr-00390-TSC and 1:20-cr-00128-TSC, Opinion and Order granting in part motion to reduce sentence, Aug. 12, 2025, original. ↩
Back to top