Preserved data releases

Release notes

v18 · 2026-10-09. The release corrects 177 dollar figures below $1 billion in the DOJ press-release index that were not the case figure of their release, such as a statutory maximum fine, income or payroll claimed on an application, or a roundup total. Each row now carries the case figure stated in the same release, or is blank where the release states no figure for its own case: 133 figures change, 44 become blank and three blank rows gain a figure. The identity-theft classification takes the corrected figures on the 74 corrected rows it also holds. A blank amount no longer carries the reliable mark: 28 rows lose it, two blanked by this release and 26 that were already blank. The copies of both tables on the data host will be replaced at the same addresses by the files this site serves. The sentencing table does not change. Files: CHANGES.json.

v17 · 2026-10-09. The release corrects 45 dollar figures of $1 billion or more in the DOJ press-release index that were not case amounts, such as program totals, nationwide tallies and other cases named in roundups. Each row now carries the case figure stated in the same release, or is blank where the release is a roundup, report or notice or states no figure for its case. It also corrects three smaller figures in the same way, a $903 million district total and nationwide totals of $836 million and $569 million, which the identity-theft classification had marked reliable. Four of the corrected rows are also in the identity-theft classification, which takes the corrected figures: one of the 45 and all three smaller ones. The copies of both tables on the data host will be replaced at the same addresses by the files this site serves. The sentencing table does not change. Files: CHANGES.json.

v16 · 2026-10-05. The DOJ press-release index adds 214 releases (3,093 in all). Compared with the v15 data-host copies, the sentence cell changes on 827 rows of the index and 598 rows of the identity-theft classification. Of those cells, 816 in the index and 590 in the classification are now blank, most on releases that announce a charge, plea, arrest or verdict rather than a sentence. The copies of both tables on the data host will be replaced at the same addresses by the files this site serves. The sentencing table does not change. Files: CHANGES.json.

v15 · 2026-10-02. The pandemic-fraud sentencing table corrects 15 rows from court records; each corrected cell’s notes cite the document. From this release the table records the prison term the court imposed: where a later order reduced the sentence, the row keeps the imposed term and its notes record the reduction and cite the order; 2 rows return to the imposed term. It adds 8 rows read from court judgments; where a judgment does not name the relief program, the program comes from a charging or plea document on the same docket, and the row’s notes cite it. The DOJ press-release index and the identity-theft classification take the changed facts on the releases they list. The chart now draws on 783 sentences (was 776); the median stays 36 months. Files: CHANGES.json.

v14 · 2026-10-02. The pandemic-fraud sentencing table corrects 147 rows from court records (judgments, amended judgments and orders that reduce a sentence: the table records the term in force); each corrected cell’s notes cite the document. It adds 80 rows read from court judgments; where a judgment does not name the relief program, the program comes from a charging or plea document on the same docket, and the row’s notes cite it. It adds 9 rows read from DOJ press releases where no court record is held; their notes cite the release’s page on this site. One row that named two defendants is split into a row for each. 7 rows that repeated defendants already in the table are removed. The DOJ press-release index and the identity-theft classification take the changed facts on the releases they list. The chart now draws on 776 sentences (was 718); the median is now 36 months (was 37). Files: CHANGES.json.

v13 · 2026-10-01. The pandemic-fraud sentencing table adds 16 rows read from DOJ press releases (Tiawana Brown, Tijema Brown, Antionette Rouse, Ardavan Alamoutinia, Angela Kellogg, Dommonick T. Chatman, Preston Fleming, Feliciano Pineda, McCayla Myers, Brittany Blalock, Brigette Miller-Levy, Verlynn Horne, Treva Harris, Cheryl Galloway, Attallah Williams and Keith Mitchell); each row’s notes cite the release’s page on this site. The DOJ press-release index takes the facts of the added rows on the releases it lists. It also corrects dollar_amount on 559 parsed rows from the stored release text, where the parser had taken a program total, a fine, an agency total or claimed payroll for the case amount; the identity-theft classification copies those columns, so 488 of its rows change too. The chart now draws on 718 sentences (was 709); the median stays 37 months. Files: CHANGES.json.

v12 · 2026-10-01. The pandemic-fraud sentencing table takes figures read from court records. 3 rows are added from court judgments (James Victor Punelli, Sky Tiffany Lawson and Kelly Bree Mosley); each cites its judgment’s page on this site. 8 rows are corrected or completed from court records (Joseph Cherry, Keon Taylor, Donte O’Neill Clements, Kimberly Maddox, Donald Franklin Trosin, Medard Ulysse, Cassie Will-Darnall and Dantavious Jackson); each row’s notes cite the document. The DOJ press-release index takes the changed facts on the rows it shares with the table. The chart now draws on 709 sentences (was 708); the median stays 37 months. Files: CHANGES.json.

v11 · 2026-09-30. One row of the pandemic-fraud sentencing table is completed from the full text of the release it cites. The row for Tiera R. Lands (M.D. La.) kept only the 48-month prison term because only the headline of the U.S. Attorney’s release of December 1, 2023 was held. The full release, now held, adds $858,726.11 in restitution, $138,212 in forfeiture and three years of supervised release; the row’s amount is the restitution ordered. The row has a Justice Department release, so the DOJ press-release index and the identity-theft classification take the new amount on that row. The 708 charted sentences do not change. Files: CHANGES.json.

v10 · 2026-09-30. One row of the pandemic-fraud sentencing table is corrected from the court’s judgment. The row for James Flores (N.D. Tex., No. 4:24-CR-306-Y) carried Michael Cota’s terms: three years of probation and $1,844,410.40 in restitution. Flores’s judgment imposed 41 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and the amended judgment of September 25, 2025 orders $64,391,256.84 in restitution, owed jointly and severally with Nathan Reis and Stephanie Hockridge. The row has no Justice Department release, so the DOJ press-release index and the identity-theft classification do not change. The charted sentences now number 708 (was 707); the median stays 37 months. Files: CHANGES.json.

v9 · 2026-09-30. The pandemic-fraud sentencing table becomes the one source of each case’s amount, sentence, charge and program. Every place where it disagreed with the DOJ press-release index or the identity-theft classification was checked against the Justice Department release both cite. In 26 rows the table itself was wrong: the amount it carried was a fine, a statutory maximum, a program total, a nationwide seizure total or another person’s figure, and it now gives the case amount the release states; 129 more rows get an amount label or sentence text that describes what the release says. Two rows that joined two defendants now give each their own prison term: Edward Sheldon Whitaker and Schunda Coleman (E.D.N.C.), 120 and 84 months, and Lakisha Pearson and Robert Pearson (N.D. Miss.), 75 and 110 months (the old row’s 127 months also counted her separate 52-month sentence, which has its own row); amounts the releases state only for the couple stay on the first row. One sentencing is added, Nathaniel Hopkins, Jr.’s in the Eastern District of Louisiana (Social Security theft that included $3,200 of COVID-19 stimulus funds), so the table has 1,020 rows. The index and the classification now take those four columns from the table for the 772 releases it covers, and say so in a new fact_source column; their other rows keep the values parsed from the release text. The index file on this site and on the data host is now the same 2,879-row file. The charted sentences now number 707 (was 705). Files: CHANGES.json.

v8 · 2026-09-29. The pandemic-fraud sentencing table now has 1,017 rows: one sentencing the Justice Department announced on 2026-09-29 is added, Brian Pittman’s in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. One curated row that cited no source now carries the Justice Department release that announced the sentence, with its date and charge; its sentence, restitution and amount already matched that release and the judgment on this site. One row that v7 corrected, Brian Shane Haigler’s, also appears in the DOJ press-release index and the identity-theft classification, which still gave $1,500,000 and a false-statements charge; both tables now give the $311,000 EIDL loan and the wire-fraud plea, on this site and on the data host. The district pages and every count of the table were recomputed; the charted sentences now number 705 (was 704) and their median is 37 months (was 37). Files: CHANGES.json.

v7 · 2026-09-29. The pandemic-fraud sentencing table keeps its 1,016 rows. 3 rows are corrected against the Justice Department release each one cites: one row still carried the date, program, charge and amount note of another defendant’s case; one gave the top of a loss range for a wider scheme as the amount obtained; and one gave an amount that no record we have supports in place of the release’s figure. The district pages and every count of the table were recomputed; the 704 charted sentences and their median of 37 months do not change. Files: CHANGES.json.

v6 · 2026-09-29. The pandemic-fraud sentencing table goes from 1,040 rows to 1,016. 24 sentencings were in the table twice: once from the Justice Department release and once from a curated court-file source pack or a case-file summary, for the same defendant, the same case and the same sentence (in 7 of them the second row spells the name differently). Each now has one row, the release row, which names the withdrawn row in its notes. The sentencing chart and every page that counts the table were recomputed: 704 sentences can be charted (728 before), and their median is 37 months. Files: CHANGES.json.

v5 · 2026-09-29. The pandemic-fraud sentencing table goes from 1,122 rows to 1,040. An automated research pass had attached the wrong person, or figures from another case, to some rows. Two audits went through every row that pass had changed and compared it with the source the row cites, one for the Justice Department releases and one for the inspector-general and state reports; this release carries their corrections. Rows whose source could not be read stay as they were and are listed for a later check. 69 rows were corrected: 25 now name the person their source names, and 44 now carry their source’s own figures. 11 rows return for releases whose rows v4 withdrew; each now names the person its release names. Where the pass had written a figure the source does not state, such as an exact dollar sum where a release says “more than” a round amount, the cell is now blank, and the row’s notes say so and quote the source’s own wording where it gives one: 47 figures on 37 rows, and the district on 2 rows whose release does not name the court. 32 sentencings had been counted twice, once from the U.S. Attorney’s release and once from the Justice Department’s national copy of it; each now has one row, which cites the U.S. Attorney’s release and names the national copy in its notes. 31 inspector-general rows repeated a sentencing that a Justice Department row already carries, and were withdrawn. 26 rows recorded people who had been charged but not sentenced; the table lists sentences, so they were withdrawn. 4 more rows were withdrawn: 1 entered the same release twice, and 3 carried a name that no document we hold supports for that sentencing. The sentencing chart and every page that counts the table were recomputed: 728 sentences can be charted (755 before), and their median is 37 months. Files: CHANGES.json.

v4 · 2026-09-29. The pandemic-fraud sentencing table goes from 1,133 rows to 1,122. We withdrew 11 rows because the source each one cited does not name the person in the row. For 5 of them we found no public document that names the person; 5 repeated a defendant who already has a row citing a release that does name them; 1 described a case that was not pandemic-relief fraud. One more row now cites the release that names its defendant, and its restitution and forfeiture cells, which had come from another case, are blank. The sentencing chart and every page that counts the table were recomputed: 755 sentences can be charted (763 before), and their median is 37 months. How rows are built and checked: how the table was built and the methodology. Files: CHANGES.json.

Releases v1 (2026-07-10), v2 (2026-09-15), v3 (2026-09-18), v4 (2026-09-29), v5 (2026-09-29), v6 (2026-09-29), v7 (2026-09-29), v8 (2026-09-29), v9 (2026-09-30), v10 (2026-09-30), v11 (2026-09-30), v12 (2026-10-01), v13 (2026-10-01), v14 (2026-10-02), v15 (2026-10-02), v16 (2026-10-05) and v17 (2026-10-09) are superseded by v18. Their manifests stay published unchanged, so a citation of an earlier release can still be checked against the checksums it names; latest.json lists them.

Integrity files

The manifest lists every file with its dataset, role, byte size, SHA-256, row count, source vintage, publisher, rights, and caveats. SHA256SUMS is in the format sha256sum -c reads.

JSON manifest · CSV manifest · SHA256SUMS