An Aurora man has been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison for defrauding COVID-19 relief programs.
Russell Ray Foreman, 39, was sentenced Friday to 66 months in prison for money laundering and wire fraud, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office in Colorado.
From March 29 to Oct. 6, 2020, Foreman submitted seven fraudulent loan applications to the Small Business Administration, according to a plea agreement in the case. Two of the applications were approved and funded by the SBA, resulting in fraudulent proceeds of $196,500.
Foreman “knowingly made false statements about the number of employees for each business, the gross revenues, the cost of goods sold and the date each business was formed,” according to the release.
On May 14, 2020, Foreman filed a false and misleading paycheck protection loan application, fraudulently obtaining $20,052. He also “aided and abetted” a co-defendant who made a bogus loan claim for $150,000.
The defendant had been associated with unsuccessful applications under the CARES Act totaling more than $2 million, the release said.
“We will continue to prosecute anyone who tries to defraud the United States Government out of money that was supposed to be used to keep small businesses afloat during this national emergency,” U.S. Attorney Cole Finegan said in the release.
The sentence by Judge Raymond P. Moore includes a restitution order of $367,000. The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service’s Denver field office.
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