Feds say Anpeleno bilted PPP out on $8M
Boney lost To casino in LV, bad stock buys
A Los Angeles man is accused of swindling millions from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, then losing a sizable portion of the money on gambling junkets to Las Vegas and risky stock purchases.
A news release from the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles states that Andrew Marnell, 40, is charged in a criminal complaint with bank fraud. The complaint alleges that
“he obtained more than $8 million in PPP loans through applications to insured financial institutions, and others, on behalf of different companies.”
A copy of the complaint obtained by the Las Vegas Review-journal indicates that Marnell is accused of submitting fraudulent loan applications to at least four lenders through the Small Business Administration program that helps businesses keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 crisis.
Authorities allege that Marnell “made numerous false and misleading statements about the companies’ business operations and payroll expenses,” used aliases and “submitted
fake and altered documents, including bogus federal tax filings and employee payroll records.”
The criminal complaint was filed by a senior special agent in the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s office of inspector general. It states that Marnell submitted applications under company names like Quicksilver LLC, Shale Creek LLC, Slatestone LLC and others.
In one application, according to the complaint, he represented that Slatestone was a Wyoming-headquartered firm with 75 employees, owned and controlled by “Andrew Merrill.” This process of using different names and false documents on loan applications, authorities said, yielded millions in PPP loans.
Some of those loans were later flagged by fraud investigators.
Authorities said Marnell subsequently transferred millions of dollars from the fraudulently obtained loan proceeds to his brokerage accounts for risky futures trading. He took huge losses in the endeavor. One brokerage account used for futures options trading by Marnell resulted in “a net loss of $2,773,455.40 for the month of June 2020,” the complaint states.
Marnell also gambled at Las Vegas casinos, according to the complaint.
“Information from the Bellagio indicates that Marnell was gambling at the Bellagio from July 9 to July 11, 2020, and that he lost more than $150,000 in those two days,” the complaint states.
Authorities said they traced an IP address to an account in the name of Marnell’s husband. The investigation indicated that Marnell also attempted to open accounts using aliases at another brokerage firm, but the firm told authorities they’d previously banned Marnell from trading because of “fraudulent activity.”
Marnell was being held without bond as of Thursday, according to the news release from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Central District of California.
Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Glennatrj on Twitter.