United States v. Luke Pierre Jr.

Case summary

A federal judge in Fort Lauderdale sentenced Luke Pierre Jr., 36, of Port St. Lucie, Florida, to 24 months' imprisonment for fraudulently obtaining more than $400,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program. The judge also ordered him to pay close to $415,000 in restitution.¹

Pierre submitted a PPP loan application on behalf of his company, Most Wanted Bullyz LLC, a dog-breeding business, falsely representing that it had 21 employees and average monthly payroll of $165,870. The company had no employees and no monthly payroll. Pierre gave a large portion of the fraudulent proceeds to co-conspirators who helped obtain the loan, including one payment of more than $100,000 disguised in bank records as "stud fees."¹

Pierre had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud; U.S. District Judge William P. Dimitrouleas imposed the sentence. The case, docketed 21-cr-60288 in the Southern District of Florida, was investigated by FBI Miami with assistance from IRS Criminal Investigation's Miami Field Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney David A. Snider and Trial Attorney Philip Trout of the Justice Department's Fraud Section prosecuted it; Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Grosnoff handled asset forfeiture.¹

Notes

1. U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, "South Florida Covid-19 Relief Fraudster Sentenced to Federal Prison" (original), February 1, 2022. ↩₁ ↩₂ ↩₃

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