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ProfilePerson

Kelli Prather

Defendant

PPP · EIDL
Type
Person
Role
Defendant
Programs
PPP, EIDL
Updated

The profile

A Cincinnati woman who sought more than $1.2 million in PPP and EIDL loans, received about $19,800 and was sentenced to 84 months in prison; three of her EIDL applications named her disabled nephew as the owner.

Identity and role

Kelli Prather, 51 at her conviction, of Cincinnati, was prosecuted in United States v. Prather, No. 1:21-cr-00038 (S.D. Ohio). She was indicted in April 2021 on bank fraud and false-statement charges over PPP applications; later charges covered EIDL applications made in her nephew's name.

The scheme and pandemic-relief role

From June through August 2020, the Sixth Circuit recounted, Prather filed six PPP applications with Fifth Third Bank for six businesses: Enhanced Healthcare Solutions, Life Skills Enhancement, Prather Property Management, Reliable Ambulette Services, Rich Glo Management Services and Tots R Us. The first was approved for a loan of nearly $20,000, which bank records show she spent on personal expenses. The bank employee handling the rest noticed that one business listed four different tax structures in a single year and another claimed more inventory than assets. The bank declined the remaining applications and referred the matter to law enforcement.

Investigators found that five of the six businesses were not operating. The sixth had total income of $1,500 in 2019. Prather had sought more than $600,000 in PPP loans.

She also applied for eight EIDL loans. In summer 2020 she filed applications for three businesses in her own name; in November 2020 the same three businesses applied again with her nephew, identified in court as D.P., as majority owner. The Justice Department put the total she sought at more than $1.2 million and the amount she received at about $19,800.

  • Charged: indicted April 2021 (bank fraud and a false statement on a loan application); later charges added wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
  • Convicted: by a jury on July 25, 2023, on all 14 counts: six counts of bank fraud, one false statement on a loan application, four counts of wire fraud and three counts of aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory consecutive two-year term. She was taken into custody after the verdict.
  • Sentenced: April 9, 2024, by U.S. District Judge Matthew W. McFarland, to 84 months in prison.
  • Appeal: the Sixth Circuit affirmed on May 27, 2025 (No. 24-3300), in a published opinion by Judge Joan L. Larsen.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

In a September 16, 2026 order dismissing a civil suit she filed against some seventy-eight defendants, a federal judge in Cincinnati wrote that Prather "is incarcerated due to convictions stemming from her fraudulent receipt of CARES Act funds."

Sources

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