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Jose Martinez

Executive

PPP · PPPLF
Type
Person
Role
Executive
Programs
PPP, PPPLF
Updated

The profile

President of Prestamos CDFI, LLC and Executive Vice President for Economic Development at Chicanos Por La Causa. Prestamos was a PPP lender of record for the Blueacorn channel and was among eight lenders SBA said in December 2022 it was investigating. No charge or enforcement action names him.

Identity and role

Jose Martinez is President of Prestamos CDFI, LLC and Executive Vice President for Economic Development at Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC), the Phoenix nonprofit that owns Prestamos. He reports to the CPLC chief executive, formerly David Adame. Prestamos was the lender of record on Blueacorn's larger channel.

The New Markets Tax Credit Coalition describes him as responsible for "the strategic direction and oversight of Prestamos" (NMTC Coalition board page).

Biography / career arc

By the NMTC Coalition's account he has spent more than twenty years at the organization in various capacities, including a stint as Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, and across that career has raised more than $165 million for CPLC programs and joint ventures. He holds a bachelor's degree in communication and an MBA, both from Arizona State University.

By the same account, under his leadership Prestamos "more than tripled its annual lending, deploying over $89 million" between 2011 and 2018, extending capital and technical assistance to small businesses and economic-development projects across Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. In 2018 he managed a portfolio of more than $52 million in assets (NMTC Coalition board page). The House Select Subcommittee found Prestamos had issued roughly $50 million in loans across its entire pre-2020 history.

The company and its PPP/EIDL role

Prestamos was named as a lending partner on Blueacorn's website in May 2020 and signed its lender service provider agreement with Blueacorn on April 14, 2021. Prestamos's full 2020 PPP book was 925 loans. The 2021 volume followed two regulatory changes: the Biden administration's CDFI-priority window, which let community lenders keep originating through the program's May 31, 2021 close after other lenders were shut out, and the March 3, 2021 interim final rule that let Schedule C sole proprietors size loans on gross rather than net income.

On April 14, 2021, Prestamos and Blueacorn signed a Lender Service Provider agreement under which Blueacorn would engage "in the origination, marketing, underwriting, and funding of loans" for Prestamos. Prestamos told Select Subcommittee staff that, under the arrangement, "the majority of the [PPP processing] workflow was going to go through" Blueacorn, and that it "largely delegated [its] fraud prevention and eligibility verification functions to Blueacorn and relied on the fintech to screen applications." Prestamos held the SBA lender number and the legal underwriting duty; the intake funnel was Blueacorn's. (Womply's high-volume partners that year were Harvest and Benworth; Prestamos was the Blueacorn lender.)

On SBA-derived figures, Prestamos originated 444,780 PPP loans worth about $6.85 billion, the fourth-largest loan count across both rounds, with 444,485 of those loans at or below $50,000 and an average loan near $15,400. That earned an estimated $1.055 billion in SBA processing fees, the third-largest estimated fee total of any PPP lender. The litigation cut of the 2021 period runs higher, 494,415 loans and about $7.68 billion (Marshall amended complaint). The Subcommittee measured the year-over-year jump in Prestamos's revenue at 92,207 percent. Of the fees, internal Blueacorn financials produced under subpoena show Prestamos paid Blueacorn $700 million, up to 70 percent of the SBA processing fees Prestamos collected. To fund a book it had no deposit base to carry, Prestamos drew on the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland's PPP Liquidity Facility, with a peak outstanding PPPLF balance of about $7.16 billion.

Prestamos's statements to the Subcommittee are attributed to "Prestamos" institutionally, not quoted to him by name; no document shows Martinez personally signing the Blueacorn LSP agreement, setting a fraud-screening threshold, or directing an individual loan.

Their own relief

Because CPLC is a nonprofit and Prestamos an LLC it created in 2000, there is no public-company financial record comparable to the one Crossroads produced for Capital Plus, and no separate PPP or EIDL loan to Martinez personally is established in the public record.

No criminal charge, civil fraud judgment, or government enforcement action against Jose Martinez exists in the public record.

The SBA investigation announcement. The SBA's December 8, 2022 public statement named Prestamos among eight lenders against which it had "launched a full investigation" after the House report. No public SBA closure letter or determination clearing Prestamos appears in the record. After Adame's departure, Prestamos's outside counsel told the Arizona Republic that "there never was an investigation of Prestamos," only a compliance review that concluded the lender "were cleared," and CPLC produced an SBA email stating Prestamos "remains a lender in good standing with SBA" (Arizona Republic via Yahoo, Oct. 7, 2023). The SBA's December 2022 statement used the words "full investigation." None of these documents names Martinez.

The borrower litigation (civil, settled without a merits finding). In Marshall v. Prestamos CDFI (E.D. Pa. 5:21-cv-04337), borrowers alleged Prestamos approved their loans, reported them funded on SBA Form 1502, collected the processing fees and drew the PPPLF advance, then never disbursed the money. The March 30, 2023 motion-to-dismiss opinion let the breach-of-contract claim proceed and allowed the alter-ego claim against CPLC to go to jurisdictional discovery. Class certification was denied April 29, 2025, and the case settled confidentially on September 9, 2025 with no finding of fraud and no finding clearing Prestamos. The named defendants are Prestamos and CPLC. Federal fraud records show the channel exploited by borrowers (e.g., United States v. Marcus Cobbs) and, separately, Prestamos recognized as a victim of a paid fraud operation (United States v. Michelle Denise McIntyre, restitution to Prestamos as a direct victim). In none of these is Martinez a defendant.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

Martinez remains President of Prestamos CDFI and CPLC's EVP for economic development; the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition's board page lists the dual role. Prestamos announced a $90 million New Markets Tax Credit allocation in March 2026. No SBA enforcement action, DOJ charge, or civil fraud judgment against Martinez has appeared in the public record.

Sources held in this archive

Original source documents and archived captures

Sources

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