COVID-19 aid thieves bought fancy cars, a Pokemon card even a private island
YANKEETOWN, FLA. >> A freshwater spring bubbles amid the mangroves, cabbage palms and red cedars on Sweetheart Island, a two-acre uninhabited patch of paradise about a mile off the coast of this little Gulf Coast town.
Pelicans divebomb nearby into the cool waters of Florida’s Withlacoochee Bay and the open view westward holds the promise of dazzling sunsets.
It may have seemed like an ideal getaway for Florida businessman Patrick Parker Walsh. Instead, he’s serving five and half years in federal prison for stealing nearly $8 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds that he used, in part, to buy Sweetheart Island.
While Walsh’s private island ranks among the more unusual purchases by pandemic fraudsters, his crime was not unique. He is one of thousands of thieves who perpetrated the greatest grift in U.S. history. They potentially plundered more than $280 billion in federal COVID-19 aid; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent.
The loss represents close to 10% of the $4.3 trillion the U.S. government has disbursed to mitigate the economic devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.
An AP review of hundreds of pandemic fraud cases presents a picture of thieves and scam artists who spent lavishly on houses, luxury watches and diamond jewelry, Lamborghinis and other expensive cars. The stolen aid also paid for long nights at strip clubs, gambling sprees in Las Vegas and bucket-list vacations.
Their crimes were relatively simple: The government’s goal was to get cash into the hands of struggling people and businesses with minimal hassle, particularly during the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis. Safeguards to weed out the swindlers were dropped. As Walsh’s case and thousands of others have shown, stealing the money was as easy as lying on an application.
The thieves came from all walks of life and all corners of the globe. There was a Tennessee rapper who bragged about the ease of stealing more than $700,000 in pandemic unemployment insurance on Youtube. A former pizzeria owner and host of a cryptocurrency-themed radio show bought an alpaca farm in Vermont with pilfered aid. And an ex-nigerian government official who grabbed about half a million dollars in COVID-19 relief benefits was wearing a $10,000 watch and $35,000 gold chain when he was arrested.
Nearly 3,200 defendants have been charged with COVID-19 relief fraud, according to the U.S. Justice Department. About $1.4 billion in stolen pandemic aid has been seized.
Investigators won’t catch every crook. The scale and scope of the fraud are too large. Pandemic cases often depend on digital evidence, which is perishable, and the financial trail can go cold over time, said Bob Westbrooks, former executive director of the federal Pandemic Response Accountability Committee.
“The uncomfortable truth is the federal criminal justice system is simply not equipped to fully address the unprecedented volume of pandemic relief fraud cases, large and small, and involving thousands upon thousands of domestic and foreign actors,” Westbrooks said.
Top Justice Department officials are undeterred by the enormity of the task. They’ve created special “strike forces “to hunt down COVID-19 aid thieves and
Patrick Parker Walsh, left, heads to his car with his wife in Gainesville, Fla. on Jan. 31after he was sentenced to five and a half years in federal prison for stealing nearly $8 million in federal Covid-19relief funds. vowed not to give up the over crowded venues. In chase. June 2017, one of his blimps
“We’ll stay at it for as long crashed and burned on live as it takes,” U.S. Deputy Attorney television at the men’s U.S. General Lisa Monaco Open golf tournament, one said in August. of the world’s premier sporting
Konstantinos Zarkadas, events. a New York doctor deeply in “I was teeing off and I debt, joined the rogues’ gallery looked up and saw it on fire, of COVID-19 fraudsters and I felt sick to my stomach,” by falsifying at least 11 separate said professional golfer applications for pandemic Jamie Lovemark, according aid that netted him almost to an Associated Press report. $3.8 million, according The pilot — the sole to prosecutors. He bought passenger — was badly injured Rolex and Cartier wristwatches but survived, according valued at $140,000 to a National Transportation for himself and family members Safety Board investigation. and made a hefty down payment on a yacht, according In the wake of the crash, to court records. Walsh’s clients began to bail,
Zarkadas used about $3 his attorneys wrote in court million to pay off part of filings. To stay afloat, he obtained an earlier civil judgment high-interest loans against him for breaching that also allowed him to expand a real estate lease. His his businesses. By 2019, most brazen move was to his companies had sales of send $80,000 of the looted $16 million and had expanded cash back to the government into Latin America to settle a federal lawsuit and Asian markets. alleging he violated the Then the pandemic hit. Controlled Substances Act “COVID-19 did not slow by dispensing more than down business, it killed it,” 20,000 doses of a weightloss Walsh’s attorneys wrote. He drug without keeping panicked. accurate records, prosecutors Between March 2020 and said. January 2021 Walsh submitted
The state of New York revoked more than 30 fraudulent Zarkadas’ medical license applications for emergency shortly after he was pandemic aid and sentenced to more than four received $7.8 million, according years in prison for swiping to the Justice Department. the pandemic aid. Even if Walsh had
The stolen funds financed followed the rules, his companies the high-rolling lifestyle of would have only qualified Lee E. Price III, a Houston for a “small subset” of resident with prior felony those loans, federal prosecutors convictions for forgery and alleged. robbery. He swindled nearly “His crimes are egregious $1.7 million by submitting and the product of greed,” bogus aid applications on prosecutors wrote in court behalf of businesses that existed papers. They cited the purchase only on paper, according of Sweetheart Island, to court records. undisclosed “luxury goods,”
Price wasted little time oil fields in Texas and a blowing $14,000 on a Rolex downpayment on a home and more than $233,000 for in tony Jackson Hole, Wyoming. a flashy white Lamborghini
Urus, a luxury SUV that can Walsh’s attorneys said in go from zero to 60 mph in a court filing that he wasn’t three seconds. He also spent motivated by avarice, but thousands of dollars at the desperation. Walsh was under Casanova, a Houston stripclub. enormous pressure to Price was sentenced rescue his businesses and to to more than nine years in support his large family, they prison. wrote. He has 11 children.
Vinath Oudomsine of U.S. District Judge Allen Georgia also created a fake C. Winsor didn’t buy the argument. company that he claimed made $235,000 a year and This was not “a single moment had 10 employees. A few of weakness,” Winsor weeks after Oudomsine applied said in sentencing Walsh in for the pandemic aid, January to more than five the government rushed him years behind bars.
$85,000 to keep his non-existent As part of his plea deal, business afloat. Walsh agreed to return the
Oudomsine spent nearly $7.8 million he stole and $58,000 on a 1999 Charizard to sell Sweetheart Island, Pokémon card, which depicts which was among his first a gold dragon-like creature, purchases with the stolen jaws wide open, poised federal money, according to to attack. the court records.
While not as valuable as Prosecutors said Walsh rare baseball cards — a mint used $90,000 of those funds condition Mickey Mantle to help finance the $116,000 card sold for $12.6 million island purchase. Florida last year — Pokémon merchandise property records show can command big that the island was sold for money as collectors have $200,000 at the end of June. driven up prices for collectibles Walsh’s attorneys said he issued by the popular didn’t buy the island as a franchise. “tropical paradise for entertainment”
At Oudomsine’s sentencing but as a real estate last year, U.S. District opportunity. They did Judge Dudley H. Bowen not explain how the businessman called Oudomsine’s theft “an would have transformed $85,000 insult” to a country the isolated isle into reeling from the pandemic. a profit center.
“I feel foolish every time Withlacoochee Bay is scattered I say it: Pokémon card,” with similar small, uninhabited Bowen said before sending islands. The only Oudomsine to prison for hint that anyone had ever three years. tried to develop Sweetheart
Patrick Walsh’s bid to save Island were a few low, timeworn his aerial advertising businesses cinder block walls that started out legitimately extend into the water. There but quickly escalated was still a “For Sale” sign into sizeable fraud. posted on a weather-beaten
Walsh operated a small and leafless tree that resembled fleet of cigar-shaped blimps a scarecrow warning that flew corporate logos people to stay away.