Federal district · prosecutions
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California
5 pandemic-relief fraud prosecution records for the Southern District of California, naming 5 defendants. By program: 2 PPP, 1 unemployment insurance, 2 other or unclassified. None has a case page in the archive. An amount is stated for 4 of them, from $1,132,950 to $1,773,245. Source dates run from 2022-08-12 to 2025-04-11.
Cases
5 defendants · 0 with a case page · sorted by amount, largest first
| Defendant | Case page | Program | Charge | Amount | Disposition | Sentence | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leronce Suel | Restaurant Owner Sentenced to 42 Months in Prison for Tax Evasion | PPP, RRF | wire fraud, conspiracy, and tax crimes | $1,773,245 fraudulent applications for COVID relief programs including PPP loans and RRF grants | trial | 42 months | 2025-04-11 |
| Shawn Brown | UI | conspiracy, mail fraud | $1,400,000 obtained | sentenced | 78 months | 2024-04-24 | |
| Samir Haj | California Firm and Owner Sentenced for COVID-19 Fraud Scheme | CARES Act general | unlawful importation, sale and mailing of an unregistered pesticide product | $1,132,950 proceeds from the sale of the badges | plea | 8 months | 2022-08-15 |
| Samir Haj / Eco Shield LLC | Local Firm and Owner Sentenced in COVID-19 Fraud Scheme | COVID-19 PPE fraud (unregistered pesticide) | unlawful importation, sale and mailing of unregistered pesticide | $1,132,950 sales of unregistered EcoAirDoctor pesticide product | plea | 8 months | 2022-08-12 |
| Denny Thakorbhai Bhakta | S.D. Cal. No. 3:21-cr-03352 | PPP | securities fraud, bank fraud, money laundering | jury trial | 235 months | 2025-02-28 |
Data and method
Each row is one row of the pandemic-relief sentences table, printed as that table prints it: defendant, program, charge, amount and its basis, disposition, and the date of the source the row was read from. A blank cell is a blank cell in the table. The sentence column states the months of imprisonment the table records, or the years of probation where it records no custodial term. A case page is linked only where a case page in this district names the defendant; 0 of the 5 rows do. District is the table’s own district field, resolved to this court. Rows whose district field names only a state with more than one federal district are not placed on any district page. A date the table writes in another form is restated as YYYY-MM-DD; a cell that is not a date is printed as it stands. An amount of $1 billion or more is left out: those cells carry a program appropriation quoted in the source release, not a sum attributed to the defendant. Some defendants have more than one row because the table read them from more than one source.
Court hub: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California — every filing in the archive from this court, with the case pages it holds.