Reports

A Culver City restauranteur who owns a hospitality company that has developed restaurants and hotels in California, Tennessee, and Kentucky was sentenced today to 41 months in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining more than $4 million COVID-19 economic-relief loans.

BOSTON – A former Suffolk County Sherriff’s Department corrections officer was sentenced in federal court in Boston for submitting fraudulent information in order to obtain loans through CARES Act programs like the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

NEW ORLEANS – WELLINGTON BROWN (“BROWN”), age 53, of New Orleans, pleaded guilty on May 21, 2026, before U.S. District Judge Anna St. John, to providing a false statement to a federal agency, announced U.S. Attorney David I. Courcelle. Sentencing is set for August 27, 2026.

Tracy Jones, a former Senior Vice President at the Atlanta Housing Authority, has been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay restitution for a scheme to fraudulently collect Section 8 housing assistance payments for her own rental property and family members, making fraudulent applications to collect pandemic relief funds, and committing mortgage fraud when refinancing her rental property.

BOSTON – A Worcester man was sentenced in federal court in Boston for fraudulently obtaining tens of thousands of dollars in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) while employed as a TSA Security Officer full-time.

URBANA, Ill. – A Bourbonnais, Illinois, woman, Octavia Renee Murphy, 37, of the 700 block of Double Jack Street, was sentenced on May 19, 2026, to one year in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.