A California tax preparer was sentenced to ten years in prison for orchestrating a scheme that defrauded the Paycheck Protection Program out of $62 million. At the time he engaged in the fraud, he was on supervised release for a previous fraud scheme in which he filed false income tax returns on behalf of more than nine professional athletes. In the PPP scam, he filed false applications for PPP loans on behalf of small businesses and shell companies in exchange for 30% of the loan proceeds. He also filed fraudulent supporting tax returns that the small business owners never saw or approved. To hide the funds he received from the scam, he asked the businesses to pay the fee with cashier’s checks and to write “payroll” in the memo line.
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