MARINA OWNER GETS PROBATION FOR LYING TO GET DAMAGE LOAN

Old Saybrook marina owner Scott Sundholm was sentenced in U.S. District Court Monday to two years of probation and a $5,000 fine for making false statements about hurricane damage to his business to obtain a small business loan.

Sundholm, 39, owner and operator of S&S Marine, has paid full restitution of $1,653,257 to the Small Business Administration.

According to the government, in 2016, Sundholm applied for and received a disaster loan from the Small Business Administration after claiming that Hurricane Sandy, which struck Connecticut in late October 2012, caused a tidal surge at the marina and damaged floating boat docks, a boat ramp, a bathhouse, a metal shop building and other structures.

Sundholm also claimed that the bathhouse he had replaced after the hurricane was of the same size and quality as to what was in place prior to the storm. An investigation revealed that certain claims made by Sundholm about damage that Hurricane Sandy caused his marina were not true. Sundholm had demolished the marina’s bath house in September 2012, more than a month before Hurricane Sandy, and the bathhouse was dilapidated and not similar in size and quality to the new bathhouse that Sundholm subsequently built.

In addition, no floating boat docks or boat ramps existed at the marina prior to the hurricane. The case was investigated by the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John T. Pierpont Jr.