An Ohio man is one of five being indicted in a $4 million Payroll Protection Program (PPP) fraud case.
The accused allegedly submitted, or assisted in the submission of a fraudulent PPP loan for five businesses according to the indictment. Khalil Gibran Green Sr. of Cleveland claimed to be the sole owner of Impact Creations LLC, a company that claimed to have 67 employees and an average monthly payroll of $332,000 on a PPP application.
The indictment alleges that Green’s claims were false, stating that at the time of the loan application “Impact Creations LLC did not have employees for whom it paid salaries and taxes.”
At the time of publication, The Ohio Star was unable to find a website, review page, contact information, or any social media presence for Impact Creations LLC.
The 39-page indictment includes numerous counts of bank fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank and money laundering.
The indictment seems to allude to a previous criminal history for Green, stating, “Green submitted false documents to a lender when applying for a PPP loan, including a fabricated bank statement listing inflated account balances and non-existent transactions, fabricated IRS Form 941s listing falsified payroll information and false loan application documentation that listed false payroll information, false employment information, false purposes for the loan funding, and false criminal history information.”
Three other people were indicted with Green, including Darrell Thomas and Andre Lee Gaines of Georgia, and Bern Benoit of California.
If found guilty, the defendants will be forced to return the money that they defrauded, though it is unclear what further penalties or jail time would be.
– – –
Ben Kolodny is a reporter at The Ohio Star and the Star News Network. You can follow Ben on Twitter. Tips can be sent to [email protected].
