‘Fraudulent opportunist’ sentenced for $2.5M pandemic relief fraud
Federal prosecutors hope the conviction of a Dayton private investigator who lied to obtain $2.5 million in pandemic relief loans serves as a warning to others.
Nadine Consuelo Jackson, 32, was sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison.
In a statement, Acting U.S. Attorney Vipal Patel said Jackson defrauded programs intended to help struggling businesses and keep people employed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“She lied to steal millions of public dollars for her own pockets at a time when Americans were suffering the effects of public health and economic crises,” said Patel, who now heads the office that covers the southern half of Ohio. “This office will continue to pursue any fraudulent opportunists like Jackson.”
Court documents say Jackson fraudulently sought forgivable loans through a new program created by the Coronavirus
Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act and a separate program expanded by the CARES Act.
Jackson established her private investigation and security business, Extract LLC, in 2016, court documents say. Her attorney described it as a nonprofit and said Jackson uses her private investigator license to rescue children who are victims of trafficking.
Two of the loans were through the Payroll Protection Program (PPP), a new initiative that authorized qualifying small businesses to receive forgivable loans. The size of the loan a business can receive is based, in part, on its average monthly payroll costs.
On April 3, 2020, Jackson applied for a PPP loan of $1.3 million, court documents say, claiming in her application that she had 73 employees and an average monthly payroll of half a million dollars. But according to the documents, Jackson was the only employee listed on paperwork filed with the state.
More than two weeks later, she applied for another PPP loan – again including similar fraudulent information about the number of employees and payroll costs – seeking $1.2 million.
Jackson also applied for and received $54,000 through a program that provides loans to small businesses experiencing temporary revenue loss due to the pandemic.
Ultimately, the money was either seized by the government or recalled by the financial institution.
As part of the investigation, officials said FBI agents interviewed four people Jackson named as employees on her applications – all four said they didn't work for the company. Three said they had never heard of Extract LLC.
Her attorney, Patrick Mulligan, said in court documents that Jackson intended to help family and friends who either lost jobs or saw their income reduced because of the pandemic.
“Ms. Jackson did not spend any of the money that she received, as it was genuinely her intention to use the money to employ her friends and family,” Mulligan said.
Jackson pleaded guilty in November to wire fraud and making false statements.
LANCASTER – The Fairfield County government will receive $30.5 million from the federal $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, but that doesn’t mean the commissioners like it.
Other county entities will also receive funds from the plan, which means more than the $30.5 million will come into the county.
The purpose of the ARP is to help the country recover from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It provides funds for a variety of areas, including providing grants for small business owners, education funding, housing and numerous other areas. The county commissioners will have to wait for U.S. Treasury guidelines on spending it before they will know exactly where to allocate the money.
“First of all, I want to make it clear I do not believe that Fairfield County as a local government should reject the $30.5 million,” commissioner Steve Davis said. “I think if we were to do that those funds would simply go to New York or California. So I’m not advocating that.”
However, Davis said the National
Association of Counties asked him to help lobby Ohio legislators to get the legislation passed. He said he refused because he said doesn’t think the legislation is necessary and that it is also not necessary for Fairfield County.
“Beyond that, there are components of this legislation that are harmful to our effort to get our community and our country back in business, so to speak,” Davis said.
He called the local portion of the ARP a “$30 million social experiment” that will require a great deal of administration. Therefore, the commissioners gave county administrator Carri Brown permission to hire a deputy county administrator.
Davis said the money incentivizes people to not work, which he said is harmful to local businesses. He said there are hundreds and hundreds of unfilled positions locally.
“I’m sure in part because it’s more profitable to just receive money from the government instead of work right now,” Davis said. “So I just think there’s tremendous policy problems with this legislation. I think much of it is incredibly wasteful to the tune of $1.9 trillion where people are simply printing money that they don’t have and that my children and grandchildren will concern themselves with.”
Davis, a Republican, said he doesn’t view the ARP as a Republican or Democratic issue because he said the Republicans have also passed out trillions of dollars they don’t have. He said the ARP is a culmination of the “nanny state.”
“The creed in America right now is to just whine and cry and make yourself a victim and you’ll get some new law or some new amount of money designed to make you feel better,” Davis said. “It’s horrible, it’s wrong. I think it’s going to continue, I hope not irreversibly, because I just don’t see where this ends.
“You work hard. You maybe work two jobs like I did my whole life to get ahead, and that’s kind of the American way. Versus now just whine and cry about how you’re hurting until somebody rushes in with a new law or a bunch of money to make you feel better. That’s what this legislation is.”
Commissioner Dave Levacy said he agreed with virtually everything Davis said, including the reasoning for accepting it. Commissioner Jeff Fix said he also agreed with Davis.
Creative networking among central Ohio classical musicians led to the premiere of a new percussion concerto this weekend by the New Albany Symphony Orchestra.
In January 2019, Columbus Symphony associate violinist Heather Garner and percussion soloist Cameron Leach found themselves performing at the same concert in the Ohio Theatre. While chatting backstage, Garner mentioned to Leach her interest in programming a percussion concerto at the community orchestra she runs, the New Albany Symphony.
“He said, ‘I have just the guy,’” said Garner, the executive director of the organization.
Leach recommended composer Adam Roberts, also a music professor at Kent State University. Leach and Roberts, who met the previous fall when Cameron was teaching for a semester at the university, had already been discussing a possible collaboration.
“As I sort of do when I meet new composers, somewhere in the conversation, I casually pitch the idea of a new concerto,” said Leach, a 26-year-old Columbus resident.
Roberts, 40, was on board — if everything could fall into place.
“I didn’t expect it to actually come to fruition — it’s hard to find an orchestra and money,” Roberts said.
Flash-forward to 2019, when Leach successfully pitched the idea to both Garner and Columbus Symphony principal cellist Luis Biava, also the music director of the New Albany Symphony.
“Within like 10 minutes, the piece was born,” Leach said.
With support from the Johnstone Fund for New Music, the New Albany Symphony will join Leach in performing Roberts’ “Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra” Saturday and Sunday at the Mccoy Center for the Arts in New Albany. Both performances will be livestreamed on the orchestra’s website, newalbanysymphony.com.
In addition to the piece by Roberts, the orchestra will also perform two other works: Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 3” (to be excerpted on Saturday) and Alan Hovhaness’ “And
God Created Great Whales.”
In-person tickets remain only for the sensory-friendly concert on Saturday, aimed at those on the autism spectrum or with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. (To comply with capacity restrictions, 196 tickets, representing about 25% of the venue’s capacity, will be sold.)
“Usually, our sensory-friendly concert is quite laid-back as far as the seating,” Garner said. “We are OK with people moving around. We just ask that the social distancing is, of course, respected.”
By the time Roberts got down to the business of composing his piece, the pandemic had already sidelined numerous performing arts organizations, including the New Albany Symphony. The situation added some uncertainty to the project.
“It’s a lot of work to write a percussion concerto,” Roberts said. “I felt confident that they would do it at some
point, but was it going to be on time or was it going to be three or five or seven years (from now)?”
In the end, the orchestra — which has performed just one indoor concert since the pandemic, a livestreamed version of its annual “Holiday Spectacular” in December — was able to proceed with the planned premiere.
Roberts composed the work on the assumption that the eventual work would be performed by an orchestra whose ranks would be thinned to allow for social distancing — an assumption that turned out to be true: This weekend, the New Albany Symphony will field 42 musicians, about half of its normal size.
As Garner sees it, though, this gives the piece something of a time capsule quality.
“Fifty or a hundred years from now, if this is performed again ... I think the conductor will probably talk about: ‘When this was premiered, the musicians onstage had to be 6 feet apart,’” Garner said.
The group consists of professionals who play with other groups, students and those with day jobs, including a cadre of health care workers.
“A lot of our musicians have been vaccinated already,” Garner said.
Any fears that the stage of the Mccoy Center will look sparse, however, will be allayed when audiences see the array of instruments at the disposal of Leach, including a marimba, xylophone and vibraphone.
Added Garner: “Cameron almost needs a Google Map getting back and forth from his instruments.”
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