Lehi Man Sentenced for Stealing More than $300,000 in COVID Relief Funds (Press Release, September 11, 2024)

Summary

A press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Utah, dated September 11, 2024, announcing that Neil Alan Johnson of Lehi, Utah was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay $324,519 in restitution and forfeiture. Johnson pleaded guilty to wire fraud in February 2024. According to court documents, Johnson submitted a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan application to the SBA for approximately $324,519 for a sole proprietorship named "Neil Johnson," representing 21 employees and an average monthly payroll of $129,808.69, and then sought forgiveness of the entire loan. The release states that Johnson used up to $102,000 of the proceeds for a house and transferred over $39,000 to a separate account. Assistant United States Attorney Todd C. Bouton prosecuted the case.

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“Lehi Man Sentenced for Stealing More than $300,000 in COVID Relief Funds (Press Release, September 11, 2024).” Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/2024-09-13-lehi-man-sentenced-for-stealing-more-than-300-000-in-covid-1a0ee7dc1c/, SHA-256 9c0f26c17c8792906b3a4305858d9436f0dec8737e364397ada21e1618c05435.

Full text

PRESS RELEASE

Lehi Man Sentenced for Stealing
More than $300,000 in COVID
Relief Funds
Wednesday, September 11, 2024

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Utah

Salt Lake City, Utah – Neil Alan Johnson, 44, of Lehi, Utah, was sentenced to five years of
probation and ordered to pay $324,519 in restitution and forfeiture.

The sentence, imposed by a U.S. District Court Judge, comes after Johnson pleaded
guilty to wire fraud in February 2024 after he defrauded the COVID-19 relief program, a
federal program through the Small Business Administration (SBA) intended to help
American businesses and employees weather the economic shock of the global COVID-
19 pandemic.

According to court documents and statements made at Johnson’s sentencing hearing,
from March 2021 through November 2022, Johnson devised and engaged in a scheme
to defraud and obtain money by lying and fraudulently submitting a Paycheck
Protection Program (PPP) Loan Application to the SBA for approximately $324,519 on
behalf of his company. Then after obtaining the full loan amount, Johnson fraudulently
submitted a PPP Loan Forgiveness Application to the SBA for the entire amount of the
loan. His company, named “Neil Johnson,” was located at his home in Lehi, Utah.
Johnson submitted the loan applications as the sole proprietor of the company.

In furtherance of his scheme, Johnson lied on the applications. For example, on the
initial loan application, he falsely represented that his self-named company had 21
employees, and an average monthly payroll of $129,808.69, even though it did not. On
the loan forgiveness application, he falsely represented that the company’s payroll cost
between March 25, 2021 and September 9, 2021, was $352,463.80, and that he had used
all $324,519 of his loan funds to pay his employees’ payroll. In reality, Johnson illegally
used up to $102,000 of the PPP-Loan proceeds to buy back his house in Lehi and
transferred over $39,000 of the loan proceeds to a separate account.
United States Attorney Trina A. Higgins for the District of Utah made the
announcement.

The Utah Federal COVID-19 Fraud Strike Force investigated the case, which includes
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the
Office of Inspector General’s U.S. Small Business Administration – Office of Inspector
General (SBA-OIG), Department of Defense (DOD), U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Department of Labor – Office of Inspector General
(DOL-OIG), and the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The
public is encouraged to share information about the abuse of the Paycheck Protection
Program or other SBA programs by submitting a complaint here.

Assistant United States Attorney Todd C. Bouton of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the
District of Utah prosecuted the case.

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement
Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with
agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-
related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most
culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with
administering relief programs to prevent fraud by augmenting and incorporating
existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover
fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and
insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the
department’s response to the pandemic, please
visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus and https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus/comb
atingfraud.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can
report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud
(NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form
at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

Topic
SECURITIES, COMMODITIES, & INVESTMENT FRAUD

Components
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Office of the Inspector General
USAO - Utah
Press Release Number: 24-107

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