B’klyn scammer used fake firm to grab $2M in loans, feds say

An unemployed Brooklyn man who pretended to own a company with employees he claimed he needed to pay in the pandemic scammed nearly $2 million from a federal loan program and bought two luxury cars on the taxpayer’s dime, a newly unsealed complaint in Brooklyn Federal Court charges.

Leon Miles, 51, applied to the CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program in May for a loan totaling more than $1.9 million to cover the salaries of 50 workers at his bogus limited liability company. Claiming he had an average monthly payroll of more than $700,000, Miles submitted false tax returns and other forms, the indictment against him states.

Within days of getting the loan, Miles bought a brand-new Bentley Continental for $250,000 and a 2020 Cadillac Escalade for approximately $100,000 with taxpayer money, prosecutors say.

“At a time when so many are suffering from the devastating economic effects of the ongoing pandemic, Miles allegedly enriched himself at the taxpayers’ expense, stealing funds that were intended by Congress to keep businesses afloat and workers on payroll,” Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme said in a statement.

A brazen Miles presumably operated under the assumption the feds wouldn’t double check any of the information included in his application.

He listed the four-story residential building where he lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant as his company headquarters, according to court papers.

The only business in the building, said FBI special agent Zachary Effting in court papers, was a bodega on the ground floor.

The Daily News could not immediately reach Miles for comment.

Administered by the Small Business Administration, PPP was intended as a lifeline during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing payroll funds to companies with fewer than 500 employees. The $350 billion dried up in less than two weeks as mom and pop businesses across the nation shuttered permanently.

“This type of criminal behavior is a slap in the face to all of those who play by the rules, especially while so many in our communities are suffering from the financial fallout of the pandemic,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney in a statement.