CONCORD – Pierre Rogers, 44, of Irvine, California, pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, United States Attorney Jane E. Young announced today.
According to court documents and statements made in court, between March 2020 and November 2021, Rogers and his co-defendant, Joshua Leavitt, agreed to fraudulently apply for loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) programs. Congress had authorized the PPP and EIDL relief programs to help the millions of Americans and many small businesses adversely affected by the early stages of the COVID pandemic. PPP loans were issued by private lenders but fully guaranteed by the government, and EIDL funds were issued by the Small Business Administration.
For example, during their conspiracy Leavitt applied for a $175,000 PPP loan from TD Bank for one of their companies, Puro Group. The application falsely claimed that Puro Group’s monthly payroll was $70,000 and that the company had six employees. Rogers knew that the application had false information and signed it.
False supporting documents were included with this application. One of those documents was a false IRS Form 941, or quarterly tax return, for the first quarter of 2020. The document, which was purportedly filed with the IRS, claimed that Puro Group had five employees that quarter who were paid a total of $209,999.99. The document also claimed that the company paid actual federal income tax of $27,600 that quarter. However, that document was never filed with the IRS. The real tax filings showed that Puro Group paid $48,255.53 to its employees during the entire calendar year of 2020, or approximately $4,000 per month.
Rogers then spent $107,780 of the PPP loan proceeds to purchase a Rolls Royce Ghost.
As another example of the fraud, during the conspiracy Leavitt applied and obtained a $29,000 EIDL and $7,000 Economic Injury Disaster Grant for one of Rogers’s companies, Monticello Transnational. The application falsely claimed that Monticello Transnational’s gross revenues for the year preceding January 31, 2020, was $75,000 and that the company had seven employees. However, bank records showed no payments to employees and that the company had only a few thousand dollars’ worth of deposits. In addition, there were no tax filings for the company for 2019 or the first quarter of 2020.
In total, Rogers and Leavitt attempted to fraudulently obtain more than $3.5 million in PPP and EIDL funds. Rogers will be required to pay restitution of $803,756.
Rogers is scheduled to be sentenced on January 31, 2023. Leavitt previously pled guilty to bank fraud and wire fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced on January 11, 2023.
The case was investigated by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and Secret Service, with assistance from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. It is being prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander S. Chen.
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