Three Former St. Louis Area Residents Admit $229,000 Pandemic Fraud

Summary

A press release published March 11, 2025, stating that three former St. Louis area residents, Brianna L. Bell-Maple, Jemyla A. Bell and Leiah A. Vaughn, each pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of wire fraud. Each admitted participating in a scheme to apply for 12 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from March 2021 to August 2021, with each applying for four loans, and the release says 11 applications were approved for a total of $229,163. It says the applications sought $20,833 for a sole proprietorship in the name of a nonexistent women's clothing store. Sentencing is scheduled for June 9, each wire fraud charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine or both, and each defendant agreed to a "money judgment".

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

ST. LOUIS – Three former residents of the St. Louis area pleaded guilty Tuesday and admitted fraudulently obtaining $229,000 in loans during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brianna L. Bell-Maple, 24, Jemyla A. Bell, 39, and Leiah A. Vaughn, 23, each pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of wire fraud. Each defendant admitted participating in a scheme to fraudulently apply for 12 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from March 2021 to August 2021. Each defendant applied for four loans. The loan applications were nearly identical and sought the maximum loan of $20,833 for a sole proprietorship. Each application was filed in the name of a nonexistent women’s clothing store, and falsely claimed the store earned $121,003 in 2019. Bell-Maple, Bell and Vaughn also submitted falsified tax forms.
Eleven of the loan applications were approved, yielding a total of $229,163.
PPP loans were intended to aid small businesses in paying and retaining employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bell-Maple used PPP loan money to lease a new apartment in April of 2021. Bell-Maple and Vaughn moved in. The three spent more loan proceeds on personal expenditures such as shopping, dining, cash withdrawals, and electronic transfers to friends and family. On May 5, 2021, Vaughn and Bell-Maple spent $5,200 on a purebred puppy. Two days later, Bell-Maple and Bell each purchased a vehicle from the same car dealership.
Bell-Maple, Bell, and Vaughn submitted 11 applications for loan forgiveness on Aug. 9, 2021, falsely claiming that they spent the PPP money on payroll. The loan forgiveness applications were approved based on their false claims.
The three, who now live in Fresno, Calif., are scheduled to be sentenced on June 9. Each wire fraud charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine or both. Each of the defendants has agreed to a money judgment equal to the total value of fraudulently obtained PPP loans.
The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Clow is prosecuting the case.

File and source

File

2025-03-11_three-former-st-louis-area-residents-admit-229-000-pandemic-fraud_37ae3815.md.txt

Size

2,046 bytes

SHA-256

9cbfefc60fbc0415b3d7ccc146fdcd609fa0874a5ae41556ed3b5b0efcaa75a3

Our copy

2025-03-11_three-former-st-louis-area-residents-admit-229-000-pandemic-fraud_37ae3815.md.txt

Original

www.justice.gov