Reports

DAYTON – A Dayton woman was sentenced in federal court today to prison for fraudulently obtaining more than $2.5 million in pandemic relief loans.

Seattle – A Washington tech executive pleaded guilty today to wire fraud and money laundering in connection with his scheme to obtain over $5.5 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and laundering the proceeds, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman for the Western District of Washington.

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles returned a superseding indictment, which was unsealed Thursday, charging four additional individuals for their alleged participation in a scheme to submit over 150 fraudulent loan applications seeking over $21.9 million in COVID-19 relief funds guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Ganell Tubbs, 41, Little Rock, was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison after fraudulently obtaining nearly $2 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans intended to provide relief for small businesses affected by COVID-19.

This management advisory memo identifies potential risks associated with the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) efforts to expedite adding new staff to meet increased demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) recognizes the tremendous pressure to quickly hire staff to meet unprecedented needs. To achieve VHA’s goal of bringing all new employees on duty within three days of making a tentative offer, VHA has modified or deferred tasks such as fingerprinting, background investigations, drug testing, credentialing, and preplacement physicals.The potential...

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a review to assess Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) virtual primary care response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the use of virtual care by primary care providers and their perceptions of VA Video Connect (VVC) between February 7 and June 16, 2020.The COVID-19 pandemic presented significant challenges to health care delivery worldwide. One strategy initiated by VHA, in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation to social distance, included expanding the delivery of primary care via virtual care...

Federal authorities this morning arrested two employees of the U.S. Postal Service who allegedly abused their positions to purchase and cash Postal money orders with tens of thousands of dollars of unemployment benefits fraudulently obtained with false claims of COVID-related job losses.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland has seized “usaregenermedicals.com,” which purported to sell and distribute REGEN-COV2, an antibody drug cocktail approved for the treatment of COVID-19 virus. However, the website was fraudulent and instead appears to have been used to collect the personal information of individuals visiting the site, in order to use the information for nefarious purposes, including fraud, phishing attacks, and/or deployment of malware. Individuals visiting the site now will see a message that the site has been seized by the federal government and be...