Federal Paycheck Protection Fraud Beyond PPP Loans

Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to give you the reality of pandemic relief fraud prosecution - not the sanitized version the government presents, not the outdated advice from 2021, but the actual truth about what happens when federal prosecutors decide to build a case against someone who touched PPP, EIDL, Employee Retention Credits, or unemployment benefits during COVID-19.

That forgiveness letter in your files? The one you celebrated when it arrived? It means absolutely nothing in a criminal prosecution. Civil loan forgiveness operates on a completely different track than criminal charges. The government can forgive your PPP loan on Monday and indict you for fraud on Tuesday. Same application, same statements, same exposure. This is the reality that most business owners discover far too late.

The pandemic created the largest fraud opportunity in American history - over $4.6 trillion in relief funds disbursed with minimal oversight. Now comes the reckoning. And if you touched multiple programs, the exposure isn't additive - it's multiplicative. Everything you thought you knew about pandemic relief is probably wrong, and what you don't know could cost you years of your life.

The Forgiveness Illusion That Destroys People

Heres the thing about PPP forgiveness that nobody explains properly. When the SBA approved your forgiveness application, they made a civil determination that you met the programs requirements for having your loan converted to a grant. Thats it. Nothing more. The SBA isnt the Department of Justice. There not the FBI. There not the IRS Criminal Investigation division. All they did was approve paperwork.

The Department of Justice operates on an entirely seperate track. Criminal prosecutors dont care what the SBA decided about your forgiveness. They care about what you stated in your original application, whether those statements were accurate, and wheather they can prove you knew they werent. The forgiveness decision is completly irrelevant to there analysis.

The IRS Criminal Investigation division has launched over 2,039 tax and money laundering cases related to COVID fraud. There conviction rate? 97.4 percent. Let that sink in. If you get charged, your basicly going to prison. The question isnt if - its for how long. Federal prosecutors dont bring cases they think they might lose. With a conviction rate that high, they only charge when there certain.

Look, the forgiveness letter actualy makes things worse psychologically. People see it and think the matter is closed. They relax. They dont preserve documents. They talk to people they shouldnt talk to. They make admissions to there accountant, there banker, there business partner. And then three years later, when the target letter arrives, theyve already destroyed there own defense through careless statements and missing records.

The truly dangerous part is the false sense of security. You recieved forgiveness, so you assume you did everything right. But forgiveness standards were incredibly lax. The SBA was under pressure to process millions of applications quickly. They werent conducting forensic audits. They were rubber-stamping paperwork to show Congress the money was moving. Criminal investigators have very different standards then the SBA loan processors who approved your forgiveness.

How Prosecutors Stack the Deck With Multi-Program Indictments

This is were it gets really concerning for anyone who applied to more then one program. And lets be honest - most business owners who got PPP also applied for EIDL. Many also filed for Employee Retention Credits through there accountant. Some even collected unemployment during periods when there business was supposedly operating at full capacity.

Federal prosecutors in 2024 and 2025 have perfected a strategy that maximizes there leverage and your exposure. Instead of charging PPP fraud alone, they combine every pandemic program you touched into a single indictment. PPP becomes wire fraud because you used electronic communications. EIDL becomes bank fraud because the funds went through a financial institution. False payroll numbers become tax fraud because they affected your ERC calculations. Each program is a seperate federal count.

The COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force uses sophisticated data analytics to cross-reference every pandemic relief program. Your PPP application gets matched against your EIDL application. Those get compared to your payroll tax filings. Those get cross-referenced with any Employee Retention Credit claims your accountant filed. One inconsistancy anywhere triggers investigation across all programs. The computers catch everything.

Heres the kicker - the same false statement about employee count appears in every application. So now you have wire fraud (PPP), bank fraud (EIDL), false claims (ERC), and potentially unemployment fraud if you collected benefits while claiming full-time employees. Each count carries 10-30 years. Consecutive sentencing is possible. Your looking at theoretical exposure of 50 years or more from what seemed like a single exaggeration about your payroll.

As of December 2024, the Department of Justice has charged more then 3,500 defendants. They have siezed over $1.77 billion in assets and forfeited over $1.53 billion. 81 percent of defendants recieved prison time - not probation, not home confinement, actual federal prison. And thats regardless of the amount involved. Federal judges are treating pandemic fraud as a serious offense that warrants incarceration even for relatively small sums.

The enforcement results are staggering. Over $1.1 billion in restitution orders. More then 2,532 defendants found guilty. 94 percent ordered to pay restitution. Prison sentences ranging from 1 day to 30 years, with the majority falling between 1 and 5 years. These arent just the big fraudsters. These are regular business owners who made mistakes on applications worth $50,000 or $100,000.

The 40 Percent Problem Nobody Is Talking About

Think about that number for a second. Defendants sentenced in 2024 and 2025 are recieving prison terms that are 40 percent longer on average then defendants sentenced in 2021 and 2022 for identical conduct. The exact same fraud commited in 2020 gets dramaticaly different treatment depending on when you got caught.

Same fraud. Same amount. Same circumstances. But if you commited PPP fraud in 2020 and got caught in 2021, you might have recieved 18 months. Get caught in 2025 for the exact same thing? Your looking at 25 months or more. Thats an extra seven months in federal prison because of when you got caught, not what you did. Seven months away from your family, your business, your life - simply because the government took longer to find you.

Why the increase? Several factors are at play. Judges have seen thousands of these cases now and there patience has worn thin. The "pandemic chaos" excuse that worked in early cases doesnt fly anymore. Everybody was struggling during COVID. Everybody was scared and desperate. Judges heard that story a thousand times and there done with it. Prosecutors are also more experienced at presenting these cases and have developed more effective sentencing arguments.

And frankly, there under political pressure to deliver results. The government gave away trillions of dollars with minimal oversight and got embarassed by the fraud that followed. Now they need convictions and significant sentences to show they took the problem seriously. Your case isnt just about your conduct anymore - its about making an example.

Todd Spodek has watched this sentencing creep happen in real time over the past four years. The clients we represent now face dramatically different outcomes then clients facing identical allegations in 2021. The defense strategies that worked three years ago dont work anymore. The arguments that got people probation now get them prison. Judges who were sympathetic in 2021 are hardened and skeptical in 2025.

Employee Retention Credit: The $600 Million Warning Shot

OK so you might be thinking - I didnt get PPP or EIDL. I just filed for the Employee Retention Credit through my accountant. That was a tax thing, not a loan. How bad could it be?

In January 2025, the Department of Justice announced its largest ERC fraud indictment ever. Seven individuals charged for filing over 8,000 false refund claims totaling $600 million. They succesfully secured $44 million before getting caught. The scheme operated through something called Credit Reset - a supposed credit repair business that was actualy a fraud factory churning out fake claims.

The individuals charged include Keith Williams, Janine Davis, Morais Dicks, and four others. There facing conspiracy to defraud the United States, wire fraud, and aiding and assisting the preparation of false tax returns. These are serious federal charges with decades of potential prison time. And this was just one scheme among hundreds being investigated.

The DOJ created a specialized unit called the Fraud Strike Force specificaly for ERC prosecution. Government officials have stated this enforcement will "occupy a substantial portion of DOJ attention for years to come." There not slowing down. There ramping up. The ERC is the next major front in pandemic fraud prosecution, and most business owners have no idea there exposed.

Heres the part nobody talks about - the IRS has issued approximately 28,000 disallowance notices on ERC claims aggregating $5 billion. These are claims the IRS determined were improper after the fact. Over 200,000 claims have been disallowed, reversed, or recaptured. Another 592,000 remain pending as of late April 2025. If your claim is in that pending pile, you dont know yet whether its going to be approved, denied, or referred for criminal investigation.

If your accountant or an ERC promoter filed aggressive claims on your behalf, you have exposure whether you knew the details or not. Willful blindness isnt a defense in federal court. You cant just say "my accountant handled it" and walk away. The IRS Office of Promoter Investigations has recieved hundreds of referrals concerning individuals and businesses that potentially facilitated fraudulent claims. When these promoters cooperate - and they will cooperate to save themselves - your name is on there client list.

Since the enactment of the CARES Act, the IRS has issued roughly $269 billion in ERC payments. Thats an enormous pool of money, and a significant portion of it went to businesses that didnt actualy qualify. The government wants that money back. And there willing to prosecute to get it.

The 10-Year Clock: Why Your 2020 Loan Can Be Prosecuted in 2030

In August 2022, President Biden signed two pieces of legislation that fundamentaly changed the landscape for pandemic fraud prosecution. The PPP and Bank Fraud Enforcement Harmonization Act and the COVID-19 EIDL Fraud Statute of Limitations Act extended the deadline from five years to ten years. This passed with strong bipartisan support. Both parties wanted more time to prosecute fraud.

This wasnt routine housekeeping. Congress specificaly passed these laws because they knew it would take years to investigate millions of potentially fraudulent applications. They wanted prosecutors to have the time to build comprehensive cases - not rush through quick prosecutions that might miss connected fraud across multiple programs. The extension was deliberate and calculated.

What this means practicaly: If you got a PPP loan in April 2020, the government can charge you with fraud untill April 2030. Second-draw loans from 2021? Prosecutable through 2031. And thats assuming the clock started when you recieved the funds. Under some legal theories, the statute doesnt even start running untill the fraud is discovered - which could push the deadline even further out.

Notice the pattern? The government isnt trying to wrap this up quickly. There taking there time. Building bigger cases. Combining more defendants into single indictments. Maximizing exposure and leverage. Using data analytics to find connections between applications. Waiting for promoters and co-conspirators to flip. This is a long game and they intend to win it.

The lesson here is that time isnt on your side. Every year that passes is another year of worry and uncertainty. Every year is another year where a cooperating witness might name you, where an algorithm might flag your application, where a random audit might uncover inconsistancies. The sword hangs over your head untill the statute runs out - and thats not untill 2030 or later.

What Happens When They Combine Everything

Let me show you what this actualy looks like with a real consequence chain that plays out in federal court every week.

Business owner applies for PPP with inflated payroll numbers - maybe adding $50,000 to the actual amount to get a bigger loan. Seemed harmless at the time. Everyone was doing it. Same inflated numbers get used for the EIDL application because why would you use different numbers? The SBA programs share data and cross-reference applications. Now those false payroll figures contradict the ERC claims your accountant filed based on actual payroll records from your tax filings.

Prosecutors see the mismatch between what you told the SBA and what you told the IRS. They pull everything. Your bank records. Your tax returns. Your payroll records. Your employee count. Every application you submitted. Suddenly your looking at an indictment that combines wire fraud for the PPP (20 years maximum), bank fraud for the EIDL (30 years maximum), false statements for the ERC (5 years), plus money laundering if you used any proceeds for anything other then payroll like buying equipment or paying off personal debts.

This is exactly what happened in the Feeding Our Future case in Minnesota. Aimee Bock and others operated a scheme using pandemic child nutrition programs combined with other relief fraud. Convictions on all counts in March 2025. The ringleader recieved 28 years in federal prison. Twenty eight years. The youngest defendant in a seperate but related case got 10 years. These sentences sent a clear message about how seriously federal judges are taking combined pandemic fraud.

These arent outliers anymore. There the new normal for combined program fraud. A Nevada man was sentenced in August 2025 to over 15 years for obtaining more then $11 million in PPP loans and laundering the funds. An Akron tax preparer got 11 years for $1.2 million in COVID relief fraud. Even smaller cases are resulting in multi-year federal sentences. The message from the bench is clear - pandemic fraud means prison.

The Promoter Problem Creates Witness Problems

Theres another angle that catches people completly off guard. The tax preparers and ERC promoters who helped you file? There being investigated too. And when faced with there own criminal exposure, they cooperate. They have to. The alternative is prison.

The IRS Criminal Investigation division specificaly targets promoters because flipping one promoter gives them access to dozens or hundreds of clients. Its the most efficient way to build cases. Your name is on a list somewhere in a promoters records. The question is whether that list has been subpoenaed yet. And once it has, every client on that list becomes a potential target.

As Todd Spodek explains to clients facing this situation, the promoter cooperation dynamic changes everything about defense strategy. You cant count on attorney-client privilege with a tax preparer - that privilege doesnt exist with them. They have every incentive to minimize there own exposure by maximizing yours. They will tell prosecutors everything you said, everything you signed, every instruction you gave them. And once they start cooperating, the evidence against individual clients often becomes overwhelming.

Think about it. The promoter has your signed engagement letter. Your emails requesting help with ERC claims. Your statements about employee counts and revenue losses. They have everything. And when there lawyer tells them cooperation is the only way to avoid prison, they will hand all of it over without hesitation. Your relationship with them isnt confidential. Its evidence.

The Defense Reality at Spodek Law Group

So what actualy works in these cases? What can a defense attorney do when the government has combined multiple programs, has cooperating witnesses, and has a 97.4 percent conviction rate?

The first thing is understanding that waiting and hoping doesnt work. The 10-year statute means this isnt going away. Every day that passes without legal counsel is a day evidence deteriorates, witnesses memories fade, and your options narrow. The government is building there case while your doing nothing. Thats not a winning strategy.

Early intervention matters more in pandemic fraud cases then almost any other federal charge. Before charges are filed, there are opportunities that vanish once your indicted. Voluntary disclosure programs exist for certain types of fraud. Cooperation with investigators can significantly reduce exposure. Prosecutors have discretion about which defendants to include in combined indictments and which ones to leave out. They have to prioritize limited resources. If your not a priority target, you might avoid charges entirely with proper positioning.

At Spodek Law Group, we've handled pandemic relief fraud cases from the investigation stage through trial and sentencing. We understand how prosecutors build these combined indictments because we've seen it from the inside. We know what triggers there interest and what defuses it. We've seen clients avoid charges entirely through proper early positioning, and weve minimized sentences significantly when charges couldnt be avoided. Every case is different but patterns emerge.

The window for action isnt permanent. Once your indicted, options shrink dramaticaly. Your looking at mandatory minimums, sentencing guidelines, cooperation credits that require pleading guilty. Once your arrested, the options are even more limited. The time to act is before you see federal agents at your door, before you get that target letter, before your accountant calls to say theyve been subpoenaed.

If you touched PPP, EIDL, ERC, or unemployment benefits during the pandemic and youve got any concern about what you stated in those applications, the smartest thing you can do right now is understand your exposure before the government decides to investigate it.

The government had years to prepare there cases. They have dedicated task forces, data analytics, cooperating witnesses, and virtually unlimited resources. You might have days once they focus on you. Call Spodek Law Group at 212-300-5196. The consultation costs nothing. The consequences of waiting cost everything.