United States v. Antonio Feliciano Crawford

Case summary

According to his plea agreement, Antonio Feliciano Crawford, 54, of Mead, Washington, filed false and fraudulent PPP and EIDL applications during 2020 and 2021 on behalf of four companies he purportedly owned and operated. They were Tann LLC, Crawford Entertainment, A&M Personal Training LLC, and a sole proprietorship doing business as "Antonio Crawford." He submitted false information and documentation, including fictitious tax returns for the companies. He obtained at least $186,971 in PPP and EIDL funding for which he was not eligible.¹

He pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud before U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice in the Eastern District of Washington, in a plea announced in August 2024.¹

During a search of his home, law enforcement seized a laptop that contained falsified tax documentation and applications for other people. Crawford also facilitated the submission of false PPP and EIDL applications for numerous other individuals. Investigators traced the laptop's contents to 24 additional PPP and EIDL payments totaling $565,808.33, and found more than $20,000 in payments those applicants had made back to Crawford after their loans funded. In total, Crawford caused a loss of more than $750,000 to the PPP and EIDL programs.²

Judge Rice sentenced Crawford to 45 months in federal prison, five years of supervised release, and $203,347.08 in restitution. The court also ordered forfeiture of $173,329 in cash seized from his home and an additional $13,642 Crawford paid in lieu of forfeiting his vehicle.²

U.S. Attorney Vanessa Waldref credited the Eastern District of Washington's COVID-19 Fraud Strike Force. Her office launched it in February 2022 with the SBA Office of Inspector General, the FBI, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the U.S. Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations and other agencies.¹ The case was investigated by the HSI Spokane Field Office, TIGTA, the SBA Office of Inspector General, the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Dan Fruchter, Jeremy J. Kelley, and Devin C. Curda prosecuted it.²

Notes

1. U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Washington, "Mead Man Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud for Defrauding COVID-19 Relief Programs" (original), August 1, 2024 (case no. 2:24-CR-00010-TOR). ↩₁ ↩₂ ↩₃
2. U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Washington, "Mead Man Sentenced to Nearly 4 Years in Federal Prison for Stealing over $750,000 From COVID Relief Programs" (original), November 18, 2024. ↩₁ ↩₂ ↩₃

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