Slovakian Man Sentenced for $738,000 Pandemic Loan Fraud
Summary
A U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri press release dated 2025-02-06 announcing that U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark sentenced Mark Ethan Jermain, a man from the Slovak Republic who used the prior legal name Arsene Millogo, to 38 months in prison and ordered him to repay $738,118. According to the release, Jermain submitted three fraudulent PPP applications from the Slovak Republic between April 26, 2020 and July 16, 2021, seeking $80,000 for Crazyeats LLC and $325,275 twice for Unimentors LLC, and transferred the money to Slovakia. The FBI said he used the identity of a former business partner without the partner's knowledge. He was arrested on the day he was scheduled to leave the country and pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud.
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“Slovakian Man Sentenced for $738,000 Pandemic Loan Fraud.”
Original at www.justice.gov. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/2025-02-06-slovakian-man-sentenced-for-738-000-pandemic-loan-fraud-6a0-f7e42f0f20/
, SHA-256 2c4d842313cc0b5384f292af50c5cfdd223cbd6830b885e03a770e86d16166af.Full text
ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark on Thursday sentenced a man from the Slovak Republic who fraudulently obtained pandemic relief loans to 38 months in prison and ordered him to repay $738,118. Mark Ethan Jermain submitted three false and fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan applications from April 26, 2020, to July 16, 2021, while he was in the Slovak Republic. Jermain used his prior legal name, Arsene Millogo. The April 26, 2020, application sought $80,000 for Crazyeats LLC, which Jermain established in Missouri in 2017. On May 13, 2020, Jermain sought $325,275 for a company he’d set up called Unimentors LLC. After the loan was approved, Jermain submitted a Second Draw PPP loan application for $325,275 on Feb. 5, 2021. Jermain transferred the loan money to Slovakia. The PPP loans were intended to help struggling American businesses and jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jermain instead used the money for personal purchases and other unapproved purposes. “Mark Ethan Jermain fraudulently applied for and received PPP loans for businesses that didn’t exist anywhere but on paper. Furthermore, he used the identity of a former business partner, unbeknownst to the partner, to defraud the taxpayer funded program out of nearly three quarters of a million dollars,” said FBI St. Louis Special Agent in Charge Ashley Johnson. “Jermain is being held accountable in timely fashion after FBI special agents nabbed him at the airport in New York before he tried to fly out of the country.” Jermain returned to the U.S. on August 17, 2023. He was indicted on August 30 and arrested by FBI agents on September 7, the day he was scheduled to leave the country. Jermain, now 42, pleaded guilty in June to three counts of wire fraud. The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gwen Carroll prosecuted the case. Anyone with information about pandemic fraud should call the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or report via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form .
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