Luxe cars in $1.9M PPP scam: feds

A Brooklyn man was busted Monday for obtaining nearly $2 million in COVID-19 relief funds — then blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new Bentley and Cadillac Escalade, according to federal prosecutors.

Leon Miles, 51, allegedly applied for a forgivable loan from the Paycheck Protection Program — designed to provide small businesses with cash to keep them afloat amid the pandemic.

After the application was approved, $1,904,593 was deposited into Miles’ personal savings account. Within days, he pulled out hundreds of thousands of dollars, splurging over $250,000 on a 2020 white Bentley Continental and another $100,000 on a 2020 Cadillac Escalade, prosecutors allege. Miles is shown posing with the Bentley in an Instagram post.

“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,” said Acting US Attorney for the

Eastern District of New York Seth DuCharme.

Miles scored the illicit payout by falsely claiming that the company he owned, 114 Macon LLC, employed 50 people with a total average monthly payroll of $768,838, according to court papers.

But his tax returns told another story. He had actually reported no taxable income and his company had filed no tax returns and reported no wage payments in 2019, officials said. The address listed for the business is his home, according to prosecutors.

Countless hustlers have used doctored tax documents to score fat payouts from the $523 billion PPP.

“We continue to see people taking advantage of the Paycheck Protection Program,” said FBI Assistant Directorin-Charge William Sweeney Jr. “The FBI will continue to aggressively pursue those who are using the money from this taxpayer funded economic relief program to pad their own pockets.”

If convicted, Miles could face up to 30 years in prison.