Federal district · prosecutions
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee
14 pandemic-relief fraud prosecution records for the Eastern District of Tennessee, naming 14 defendants. By program: 6 PPP, 2 EIDL, 5 unemployment insurance, 1 other or unclassified. 3 have a case page in the archive. An amount is stated for 14 of them, from $85,011 to $1,806,637. Source dates run from 2022-01-13 to 2026-05-15.
Cases
14 defendants · 3 with a case page · sorted by amount, largest first
| Defendant | Case page | Program | Charge | Amount | Disposition | Sentence | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edward Zanes | DOJ Usao Edtn Press Release Defendants Sentenced Prison Covid 19 Employment Tax Credit Fr 2026 05 15 | ERC | Conspiracy to file false tax returns seeking refunds based on the Employee Retention Credit and paid Sick and Family Leave Credit | $1,806,637 obtained | sentenced | 65 months | 2026-05-15 |
| Ricky Lee Taylor, Jr. | Chattanooga Pastor Sentenced To 30 Months For Wire Fraud And Tax Fraud In COVID-19 Employment Fraud Scheme | PPP | wire fraud, tax fraud | $1,800,000 obtained | plea | 30 months | 2026-01-08 |
| George Thacker | USA v. Thacker | PPP/EIDL | wire fraud | $665,600 obtained | plea | 33 months | 2022-10-06 |
| Valentine O. Odije | UI | conspiracy involving the unlawful use of debit cards funded with COVID-19 pandemic-related UI benefits | $660,000 restitution | sentenced | 21 months | 2024-02-21 | |
| Randa Allison | Randa Allison Sentenced To 14 Months In Prison For COVID-19 Unemployment Insurance Fraud Scheme | UI | Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud and Mail Fraud | $550,000 largest figure in the release | guilty plea | 14 months | 2024-02-28 |
| Porsha Tims Bush | Knoxville Woman Sentenced To 57 Months In Prison For Defrauding COVID-19 Economic Relief Programs | PPP/EIDL | false statements, false claims | $547,286 amount sought | plea | 57 months | 2022-02-24 |
| Sarrah Denton Willhite | E.D. Tenn. No. 3:22-cr-00069 (TNED 105561) Amended Judgment (Doc. 67) | EIDL | one count of wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343) | $346,600 amount of restitution ordered related to fraudulent EIDL loan | plea | 21 months | 2023-06-28 |
| Chad Thomas | USA v. Thomas — U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee | PPP | wire fraud | $307,700 PPP loans obtained | guilty plea | 40 months | 2023-08-22 |
| James Waylon Howell | Knoxville Man Sentenced To Prison For Defrauding COVID-19 Economic Relief Programs (DOJ, January 13, 2022) | PPP/EIDL | fraud related to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, money laundering | $154,700 total of four loans applied for through the PPP and EIDL programs | guilty plea | 18 months | 2022-01-13 |
| Dana Adkins | E.D. Tenn. No. 1:23-cr-00043 | UI | mail fraud | $150,000 unemployment insurance proceeds | guilty plea | 18 months | 2024-01-26 |
| Evelyn Blevins | Evelyn Blevins Sentenced to 51 Months in Prison for COVID-19 Unemployment Insurance Fraud Scheme | UI | wire fraud, aggravated identity theft | $110,000 actual loss | plea | 51 months | 2024-08-07 |
| Ketan Ghutadaria | Johnson City Man Sentenced To Two Years For Aggravated Identity Theft Related To Defrauding COVID-19 Economic Relief Program | EIDL | aggravated identity theft | $100,300 loan amount | plea | 24 months | 2024-03-18 |
| Leslie D. Bethea | United States v. Leslie Danielle Bethea | PPP | one count of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and one count of making a false statement to her United States probation officer in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 | $99,835 largest figure in the release | sentenced | 78 months | 2023-02-07 |
| Meghan Pittman | Alabama Woman Sentenced To 18 Months’ Imprisonment For COVID-19 Unemployment Insurance Fraud Scheme | UI | wire fraud | $85,011 unemployment insurance proceeds | guilty plea | 18 months | 2024-07-24 |
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; 3 of the 14 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 Eastern District of Tennessee — every filing in the archive from this court, with the case pages it holds.