A Washington state executive who previously worked for Microsoft and Amazon was sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison after authorities said he fraudulently obtained nearly $ 1.8 million in COVID-19 relief funds of the federal government.
The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington said in a press release that he was 48 years old Mukund Mohan was also sentenced to pay a $ 100,000 fine and $ 1.79 million in restitution as part of his sentence.
Mohan, who worked as head of technology at Canadian e-commerce company BuildDirect, when arrested in July 2020, pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of bank fraud and money laundering for obtaining funds from the Administration of small businesses through the Check Protection Program (PPP) of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
According to court records, Mohan filed eight fraudulent coronavirus relief requests for a total of $ 5.5 million in requested loans.
Prosecutors said that, as part of their requests, it included fraudulent federal tax returns and other false and altered documents.
The lawyer’s office said of Mohan’s eight applications, five were approved, giving him nearly $ 2 million in coronavirus aid funds to help small businesses supplement the employee income due to financial difficulties in the midst of the pandemic.
“When individuals like Mr. Mohan abuse CARES performance benefit programs to get rich unfairly, they rob those who are most vulnerable,” said Corinne Kalve, the special agent in criminal investigation functions of the ‘IRS, in a statement. Tuesday.
“Today, Mr. Mohan is responsible for the damage his greed has done to our friends, our families and our communities,” Kalve added.
Mohan’s defense attorneys had asked for a sentence of just six months, alleging his lack of a criminal record and the fact that he only spent $ 16,500 of fraudulently obtained loans, according to The Associated Press.
Since the PPP was first launched in March 2020, Department of Justice (DOJ) fraud attorneys have prosecuted more than 100 defendants in more than 70 criminal cases, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In total, the Fraud Section of the DOJ’s Criminal Division has confiscated $ 65 million in illegally obtained PPP funds, as well as real estate and other items that individuals bought with the money.