A New Hampshire man, who claimed he owned trucking and agriculture businesses, admitted that he conspired with others to fraudulently obtain nearly $320,000 in funds through two emergency relief programs that were designed to help small businesses stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Jan. 8, Chief Judge Lance E. Walker ordered Tyree Jones, 32, of Plymouth, New Hampshire, to pay nearly $52,000 in restitution. Jones pleaded guilty in November 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Victim impact statements are due by Feb. 5.
According to court documents, Jones submitted fraudulent and forged documents to receive three Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) loans, amounting to around $52,000, through the U.S. Small Business Administration.
On the PPP applications, Jones claimed to have been the sole owner of a purported trucking company, listing his gross annual income as approximately $109,213 and his payroll as nearly $21,000 on both PPP loan applications filed in April 2021.
In June 2020, Jones, who claimed that he was a sole owner of an agriculture business and employed 12 people, received a $10,000 EIDL advance from SBA that applicants didn’t need to repay.
“In addition to filing fraudulent applications for himself, Jones offered to help others obtain PPP and EIDL funds in exchange for ‘kickbacks’ from any funds they received,” the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Maine said in a statement.
Prosecutors say the fraudulent loans and kickbacks totaled nearly $320,000.
Jones faces up to 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, followed by up to three years of supervised release.
The PPP loan program was signed into law through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act in March 2020 by former President Donald Trump.
The program was designed to help struggling small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic, but federal investigators say fraudsters — including trucking-related businesses — took advantage of the SBA’s chaotic launch to vie for billions in government-backed forgivable loans.
Many of the PPP loans weren’t properly vetted and lacked internal controls to prevent fraud, according to the SBA watchdog report that was released in October 2020.
A total of $800 billion was doled out in three waves to pandemic-relief funds to help struggling businesses. Since the PPP rollout, federal prosecutors are attempting to claw back nearly $65 billion in fraudulent and ineligible pandemic relief loans obtained through the program.
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