Montgomery Woman Charged With Covid-19 Loan Fraud

Summary

A press release published April 28, 2021 by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Alabama says Zsa Zsa Bouvier Couch of Montgomery, Alabama was arrested on April 26, 2021 on criminal charges related to federal small business loan fraud, as announced by Acting U.S. Attorney Sandra J. Stewart. According to the indictment, Couch is alleged to have submitted at least six fraudulent applications for PPP loans seeking over $1.6 million, and received a total of $609,687.47 of PPP funds. The release states that Couch is charged with multiple counts of bank fraud, making false statements to a federally insured bank, and money laundering, and faces a maximum of 30 years in prison if convicted.

Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used

Full text

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA – On April 26, 2021, Zsa Zsa Bouvier Couch, 52, from Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested on criminal charges related to federal small business loan fraud, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Sandra J. Stewart. Couch made her initial appearance in federal court yesterday, April 27, 2021.
The fraud allegations relate to aid received through the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, a federal law enacted in March 2020 to provide emergency financial assistance to the millions of Americans suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. One source of relief provided by the CARES Act is the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, which authorizes the disbursement of forgivable loans to small businesses for job retention and certain other expenses.
According to the indictment returned by a Middle District of Alabama Grand Jury, Couch is alleged to have submitted at least six fraudulent applications for loans under the U.S. Small Business Administration’s PPP program seeking over $1.6 million in funds. In each of the applications, Couch falsely inflated the number of employees who worked for her purported businesses as well as the average monthly payroll for the businesses, which resulted in her ability to qualify for larger PPP loan amounts. Couch is also alleged to have made other false statements in her application, such as failing to disclose that she had applied for multiple PPP loans for the same business and failed to disclose her common ownership of multiple businesses. In support of the inflated employee numbers and average monthly payroll claimed in the applications, Couch allegedly submitted falsified tax documents. As a result, Couch received an inflated amount of funds from PPP loans to which she was not entitled. Ultimately, Couch received a total of $609,687.47 of PPP funds. It is alleged that Couch then used the funds to pay money to herself, her husband, and other family members and to purchase luxury vehicles.
Couch is charged with multiple counts of bank fraud, making false statements to a federally insured bank, and money laundering. If convicted, Couch faces a maximum of 30 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service- Criminal Investigations, the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General, and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, investigated this case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alice LaCour and Jonathan Ross are prosecuting the case.
For information about the Department of Justice’s efforts to stop illegal COVID-19-related activity, visit
www.justice.gov/coronavirus
. For the most up-to-date information on COVID-19, consumers may visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and WHO websites.
The public is urged to report suspected fraud schemes related to COVID-19 (the Coronavirus) to the National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) hotline by phone at (1-866-720-5721).

File and source

File

2021-04-28_montgomery-woman-charged-with-covid-19-loan-fraud_aea1a278.md.txt

Size

3,255 bytes

SHA-256

d001857be27dd757aa7e15a14b069b55ef64144e175adaf2edf2f10d9732150d

Our copy

2021-04-28_montgomery-woman-charged-with-covid-19-loan-fraud_aea1a278.md.txt

Original

www.justice.gov