$5 Million Pandemic Fraud Scheme Sends Bank Manager to Federal Prison
Federal law enforcement continues to go after those who take advantage of COVID-19 relief programs. A bank manager from Pennsylvania is headed to prison for running a scheme to obtain fraudulent PPP loans.
A former bank manager was sentenced to 65 months in federal prison for his role in defrauding the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tommy Hawkins of Philadelphia, aged 61, pleaded guilty to a string of charges. He was accused of running a multi-state conspiracy to defraud the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), while managing a branch of an unnamed national bank in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, that was accepting PPP loan applications.
According to court documents, Hawkins and co-conspirators recruited people who owned companies with little or no actual operations to open bank accounts at Hawkins’ branch and apply for PPP loans.
Prosecutors say Hawkins helped the recruits submit applications with false information about the number of employees and payroll expenses.
At least 38 PPP loans were approved based on these applications, with some $5 million disbursed. Hawkins received kickbacks from his employing bank for opening business accounts, and had an agreement with two other suspects, Eric Rivera and Lisa Smith, for them to pay him $5,000 of the proceeds for each PPP loan that Hawkins helped obtain.
Smith also pleaded guilty. Charges against Rivera are pending.
Another co-defendant, Sieff Robert Sargeant, pleaded guilty as well.
Prosecutors say Sargeant’s business received a PPP loan through a fraudulent application submitted through Hawkins’ branch. He then paid another man to create fake checks, which were then sent to a friend, who cashed the checks and returned most of the money back to Sargeant. This was done to conceal that the proceeds were being spent on non-payroll expenses.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of the Inspector General (FDIC OIG), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Social Security Administration (SSA), and the Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General (DOL OIG) all investigated. The U.S. District of New Jersey handled the prosecution.
It’s the latest in a string of prosecutions related to pandemic-era fraud. The Department of Justice (DOJ) COVID-19 Enforcement Task Force said in an April 2024 report that it had already recovered some $1.4 billion in stolen funds, and charged over 3,500 defendants with federal crimes.
