Omaha Man Sentenced for COVID-19 Relief Program Fraud (DOJ, 2024)

Summary

A press release from USAO - Nebraska published 2024-12-19, "Omaha Man Sentenced for COVID-19 Relief Program Fraud". It announces that on December 19, 2024, United States District Court Judge Brian C. Buescher sentenced Henry T. Lewis, 57, of Omaha, Nebraska, to five years' probation for wire fraud and ordered him to pay $210,846.26 in restitution, with credit for $20,000.00 paid before sentencing. The release states that during 2020 and 2021 Lewis, assisted by another person, submitted PPP and EIDL applications that misrepresented his business's past employee compensation and revenue, with the PPP applications supported by false tax documents he signed. The applications sought approximately $348,494.50, and he obtained $195,497.00.

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Full text

United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Henry T. Lewis, age 57, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced on December 19, 2024, in federal court in Omaha for wire fraud.  United States District Court Judge Brian C. Buescher sentenced Lewis to five years’ probation and ordered him to pay $210,846.26 in restitution, with credit for $20,000.00 Lewis paid before sentencing.
During 2020 and 2021, Lewis, assisted by another person, submitted applications for Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (“EIDL”) program loans. Those loan programs were created or expanded by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act, which was designed to provide emergency financial assistance to the millions of Americans suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The applications misrepresented how much Lewis’s business had paid employees in past compensation and how much revenue Lewis’s business had received, resulting in applications for significantly inflated loan amounts under the PPP and EIDL programs. The PPP applications were supported by false tax documents Lewis had signed. The fraudulent applications on behalf of Lewis sought loans totaling approximately $348,494.50, and he obtained $195,497.00.
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, among other methods, 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
.
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
.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Small Business Administration, Office of Inspector General.

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