United States v. Cindi Ellis Denton — S.D. Fla., No. 0:21-cr-60171-RS

Case summary

Cindi Ellis Denton was charged by a criminal complaint filed March 16, 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida with wire fraud, bank fraud, and attempt and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1344, 1349 and 2, and then by an information filed June 21, 2021 charging conspiracy to commit wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. The court accepted her guilty plea to the information on July 22, 2021. A defense motion states that on October 8, 2021 the court sentenced her to six months' imprisonment with self-surrender before 2 p.m. on January 10, 2022. She agreed to a forfeiture money judgment of $491,310.00, which the government later reduced to $377,802.12.

Case at a glance

What did the complaint allege?

The affidavit in support of the complaint states that Denton participated in a conspiracy and scheme to obtain by fraud millions of dollars in forgivable loans through the Paycheck Protection Program and other government programs, with a person now cooperating with the investigation and others, and that she obtained a fraudulent PPP loan for her own company, Emerald Jade Solutions, Inc. It states that the cooperating person, the defendant and their co-conspirators applied for PPP loans together worth more than $34 million, with at least approximately 42 of those loans approved and funded for a total of approximately $17.6 million, and that certain recipients wired a kickback of 25% of the loan proceeds.

What did the factual proffer establish?

The government's proposed preliminary order of forfeiture states that, as described in the factual proffer, from in or around June 2020 through in or around at least September 2020 the defendant knowingly and willfully conspired with two individuals and others to submit and cause the submission of millions of dollars' worth of fraudulent PPP loans, and that she caused the submission of a loan on behalf of Emerald Jade Solutions, Inc. that she knew contained materially false information. It records that Bank Processor 1 approved the loan and that Bank 1 funded it by an electronic wire transfer of $491,310.00 on June 3, 2020.

What happened to the forfeiture figure?

It fell from $491,310.00 to $377,802.12. The proposed preliminary order of forfeiture states that the United States subsequently learned that in November 2020 the financial institution holding the Emerald Jade account closed it and returned the remaining balance of $113,507.88 to Bank 1, so that the total value of the proceeds traceable to the offense of conviction is $377,802.12.

Summary written from the documents on this page; every sentence is sourced.