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ProfilePerson

Jesus Acosta Perez

Defendant

Type
Person
Role
Defendant
Updated

The profile

A Houston diesel-repair and trucking owner whose two companies received $391,300 in PPP loans in 2020; he passed half of one loan to a co-conspirator and used half the other to buy cashier's checks for strangers; he was sentenced in February 2024 to a year and a day in prison.

Identity and role

Jesus Acosta Perez, 33 at sentencing, of Houston, owned Acosta Diesel Repair LLC and Shield Trucking LLC, both Texas companies. He was charged by a one-count criminal information, United States v. Perez, No. 4:21-cr-00554 (S.D. Tex.), filed November 19, 2021, and his case was reassigned to U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who presided over the related case against Amir Aqeel.

The scheme and pandemic-relief role

The information describes how the loans reached him. A Richmond, Texas co-conspirator ("CC-1") told Acosta Perez he knew an accountant who could get government loans for his companies, and Acosta Perez supplied the companies' information. Applications for both companies then overstated their employees and average monthly payroll.

The Acosta Diesel Repair application went in on or about June 18, 2020, and a lender authorized about $187,500. At CC-1's direction Acosta Perez wired about $93,750, half the loan, to a company CC-1 controlled.

Shield Trucking's loan, about $203,800, arrived on or about August 5, 2020. Two days later he withdrew about $101,750 and bought about 15 cashier's checks made out to people he did not know, which he handed to CC-1.

The two loans total $391,300, the amount of restitution the court later ordered. Both appear, with the same amounts, in the loan chart of the December 2021 superseding indictment against Aqeel.

  • Charged: criminal information, November 19, 2021: conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 to commit wire fraud.
  • Pleaded guilty: November 30, 2021, before Judge Hanen, under a plea agreement. His sentencing was reset at least seven times over the next two years.
  • Sentenced: February 12, 2024, to 12 months and one day in prison, three years of supervised release and $391,300 in restitution to the SBA, owed jointly with Aqeel, Hamza Abbas and Khalid Abbas (judgment entered March 1, 2024).

Where they are now (2025–2026)

The court allowed him to report to the Bureau of Prisons on his own. We found no public record of him after the March 2024 judgment.

Sources

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