San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Woman charged with bilking U.S. out of COVID aid
An Oakland woman was charged Friday with defrauding the government of more than $1 million in COVID relief funds and trying to steal an additional $3.5 million by seeking federally guaranteed bank loans on behalf of four nonexistent companies.
U.S. Attorney David Anderson’s office said Christina Burden, 31, was arrested Friday in Texas and would be sent to federal court in Oakland to face a felony charge of bank fraud.
According to a sworn statement by a U.S. Treasury agent, Burden submitted 10 applications to banks between April and June 2020 for more than $4.5 million in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program, funded by the Cares Act in March to lend money to small businesses to cover their payroll, rent and other operating costs during the coronavirus pandemic. The Small Business Administration repaid the banks for loans to businesses that provided documentation of their essential costs.
Two of the loan applications were approved, for $684,000 and $308,000, and Burden also obtained a $151,000 loan from another federally funded program, the charging document said. Banks denied two applications for loans totaling more than $3.5 million, and she withdrew other loan requests.
Prosecutors in Anderson’s office said the loan applications claimed each of Burden’s four companies had as many as 89 employees and hundreds of thousands of dollars in monthly revenue, and included tax forms supposedly showing payroll taxes the companies paid to the Internal Revenue Service.
But a review of actual tax records showed that none of the companies had paid any taxes, and the purported bank records Burden submitted to document her payroll expenses proved to be doctored when compared to actual bank records, prosecutors said.
“Burden’s companies do not appear to do any legitimate business or have any employees,” the Treasury agent said. The companies were identified as Burden Consulting Group, Blessing Box, Pinkie’s Place and Creative Synergy Group. The agent did not say why the government had failed to detect any fraud before approving the loans.
Prosecutors said Burden spent much of the money on personal travel, entertainment and luxury goods and wired several hundred thousand dollars to others who used it to buy expensive cars.
No one was available Friday to speak on Burden’s behalf. She does not yet have a lawyer.