Federal district · prosecutions
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
10 pandemic-relief fraud prosecution records for the Southern District of Texas, naming 10 defendants. By program: 8 PPP, 1 unemployment insurance, 1 other or unclassified. 2 have a case page in the archive. An amount is stated for 10 of them, from $255,052 to $20,000,000. Source dates run from 2021-05-04 to 2026-09-18.
Cases
10 defendants · 2 with a case page · sorted by amount, largest first
| Defendant | Case page | Program | Charge | Amount | Disposition | Sentence | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hamza Abbas | Six sentenced for roles in $20M COVID-19 relief fraud ring | PPP | conspiracy to fraudulently obtain more than $20 million in forgivable Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans | $20,000,000 loss alleged | plea | 44 months | 2024-02-12 |
| Syed Ali | Six Men Sentenced for Roles in $20M COVID-19 Relief Fraud Ring | PPP | conspiracy to fraudulently obtain Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans | $20,000,000 total PPP loans sought by the conspiracy | guilty plea | 24 months | 2024-02-12 |
| Amir Aqeel | Leader of $20M COVID-19 relief fraud ring sent to prison | PPP | conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering | $20,000,000 amount obtained | sentenced | 180 months | 2023-10-03 |
| Robert Maxwell | COVID scammer sentenced for defrauding investors with fake products and false documents | Unclassified pandemic relief | wire fraud | $12,500,000 largest figure in the release | sentenced | 90 months | 2025-10-16 |
| Scott Jackson Davis | Houston man sent to prison for $3M PPP loan fraud scheme | PPP | wire fraud | $3,300,000 largest figure in the release | sentenced | 102 months | 2023-04-28 |
| Lee Price III | United States v. Lee E. Price, III — PPP case, S.D. Tex., Houston Division | PPP | wire fraud and money laundering | $2,600,000 amount sought | plea | 110 months | 2021-11-29 |
| Feliciano Pineda | PPP | conspiracy to defraud his former employer (a bank) through fraudulent PPP loans | $2,200,000 restitution ordered (release: "Pineda was also ordered to pay approximately $2.2 million in total restitution to his victims"); he received more than $200,000 | guilty plea | 50 months | 2026-09-18 | |
| Lola Shalewa Barbara Kasali | Woman Sentenced to Over Five Years for COVID-19 Relief Fraud Scheme | PPP | two counts of bank fraud and two counts of making false statements to a financial institution | $1,900,000 obtained | trial | 70 months | 2022-04-07 |
| Dylan Kinlock | Two fraudsters sent to prison for COVID-19 fraud scheme | PPP | wire fraud, conspiracy, false statements | $939,379 proceeds received | plea | 56 months | 2023-04-18 |
| William Cleveland Peck | Texan pleads guilty in CARES Act unemployment fraud scheme | UI | mail fraud, false claims | $255,052 largest figure in the release | sentenced | 41 months | 2021-05-04 |
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; 2 of the 10 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 Texas — every filing in the archive from this court, with the case pages it holds.