Hot Springs Man Pleads Guilty To Charges In Connection With Obtaining Coronavirus Relief Funds

Summary

A press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Arkansas dated Friday, April 9, 2021, announcing a guilty plea. It states that James Heritage, age 38, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, pleaded guilty to making a false statement on a loan application to obtain money through the Paycheck Protection Program and to one count of mail fraud tied to a scheme to collect Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. According to the plea agreement, Heritage received a PPP loan of approximately $180,000 by representing ownership of a Hot Springs business that law enforcement found did not exist. The release states that Heritage applied for PUA benefits in at least 40 different states and the District of Columbia, receiving approximately $350,000. Acting United States Attorney David Clay Fowlkes made the announcement.

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“Hot Springs Man Pleads Guilty To Charges In Connection With Obtaining Coronavirus Relief Funds.” Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/2021-04-13-hot-springs-man-pleads-guilty-to-charges-in-connection-with-f8ac0c7dac/, SHA-256 8a702284282dc2cd34becc410294a751c13af48a1eec5c46de9f5ede6e01476e.

Full text

                                      Department of Justice
                                        U.S. Attorney’s Office
                                     Western District of Arkansas


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                             Friday, April 9, 2021

   Hot Springs Man Pleads Guilty To Charges In Connection
          With Obtaining Coronavirus Relief Funds
Hot Springs, Arkansas – David Clay Fowlkes, Acting United States Attorney for the Western
District of Arkansas, announced that James Heritage, age 38, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, pleaded
guilty today to two charges stemming from his attempts to unlawfully obtain COVID-19 relief funds.
The first count charged Heritage with making a false statement on a loan application to obtain
money through the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the
second count is one count of mail fraud, in connection with a scheme to collect Pandemic
Unemployment Assistance (PUA), a form of supplemental unemployment insurance, from various
state PUA administrators.

According to the plea agreement, Heritage received a PPP loan of approximately $180,000 by
representing to the Small Business Administration that he was the owner of a Hot Springs business
in need of financial assistance. Law enforcement discovered that the represented business did not
exist, and the information in Heritage’s loan application was false. Agents also discovered
that Heritage had applied for, and in many cases received, PUA benefits from state administrators
in at least 40 different states and the District of Columbia, resulting in Heritage receiving
approximately $350,000 in these benefits.

Heritage’s sentencing will be determined by the court at a later date, following the U.S. Probation
Office’s completion of a presentence investigation. Based on his guilty plea, the maximum penalty on
Count 1 includes imprisonment up to five years and a fine of up to $250,000, and on Count 2
includes up to 30 years imprisonment and a fine of $1,000,000.

The PPP allows qualifying small-businesses and other organizations to receive loans with a maturity
of two years and an interest rate of 1%. PPP loan proceeds must be used by businesses on payroll
costs, interest on mortgages, rent, and utilities. The PPP allows the interest and principal on the PPP
loan to be forgiven if the business spends the loan proceeds on these expense items within a
designated period of time after receiving the proceeds and uses at least a certain percentage of the
PPP loan proceeds on payroll expenses.

The case was investigated by the Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Small Business
Administration’s Office of the Inspector General. Assistant United States Attorney Hunter Bridges is
prosecuting the case for the United States.



Topic(s):                                              Component(s):
Coronavirus                                            USAO - Arkansas, Western

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