SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Ejembi Onah, age 60, of Ithaca, New York, was convicted yesterday at the conclusion of a non-jury trial of two counts of wire fraud and three counts of transacting in criminally derived property for fraudulently obtaining two Paycheck Program (PPP) loans during the pandemic, receiving over $140,000 in loan proceeds, and spending those proceeds, among other things, in three separate transactions each exceeding $10,000.
United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman; Thomas Fattorusso, the Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI); and Matthew Scarpino, Special Agent in Charge of the Buffalo Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), made the announcement.
PPP loans were United States Small Business Administration (SBA)-guaranteed, forgivable loans authorized in the Coronavirus Aid Relief, Economic Security (CARES) Act, which was enacted in March 2020 to provide emergency financial assistance to Americans suffering adverse economic effects from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government’s evidence at trial established that Onah submitted two fraudulent PPP loan applications to two different lenders in June 2020. Each application included false information about the payroll and number of employees at Onah’s company, which he claimed was engaged in a seasonal nanotechnology business, and were supported by falsified tax returns. Onah spent the more than $140,000 he received to, among other things, pay back rent at his personal residence, lease a luxury car, and fund his expenses of daily living.
Sentencing is scheduled for February 15, 2024. Onah faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment for each wire fraud count and up to 10 years’ imprisonment for each money laundering count, a term of post-imprisonment supervised release of up to three years, restitution to the victims, and a fine of up $250,000 per count. A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the statutes the defendant violated, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, and other factors.
In addition, the Court found during the trial that Onah must forfeit to the United States over $140,000 in loan proceeds and an additional nearly $100,000 of those proceeds that he spent in three different transactions exceeding $10,000 each.
HSI and IRS-CI investigated the case. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Michael D. Gadarian and Joshua R. Rosenthal.
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.