By SDCN Staff
A California man pleaded guilty Friday for his role in a scheme to defraud the Small Business Administration out of $15.9 million in loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) programs.
According to court documents, from April 2020 to April 2022, Emanuel Tucker, 45, of Canyon Lake, California, and other co-conspirators, submitted several dozen fraudulent PPP and EIDL loan applications on behalf of various companies that he owned and controlled. These applications contained material misrepresentations about the companies, including the number of employees, average monthly payroll, gross revenue, cost of goods, and supporting documents. The defendant used the fraudulently obtained funds to purchase a variety of luxury items, such as a Cadillac Escalade, a Bentley Continental, and a Ferrari F8 Tributo, multiple million-dollar houses, and various jewelry, including a $63,000 diamond ring and a $400,000 diamond necklace.
“The defendant orchestrated a scheme where he worked with purported business owners to submit dozens of loan applications to steal millions of dollars of Covid-19 relief funds,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The defendant’s egregious scheme relied on layers of deception to steal taxpayer money to buy himself luxury vehicles, residential properties, and jewelry.”
“Providing false information to gain access to SBA programs intended for disaster victims is unacceptable,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Huang of the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General’s Western Region. “OIG is focused on rooting out bad actors in these vital SBA programs.”
Tucker pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 4. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
