In an absolutely bonkers federal case out of Texas, a former news anchor for ABC 15 was sentenced to a decade in prison and ordered to pay back nearly $64 million in restitution over her role in one of the largest Paycheck Protection Program fraud rackets yet prosecuted. The sentencing came on Friday, November 21.
For reference, the news anchor involved in Stephanie Hockridge, who was a news anchor for ABC in Phoenix. She and her husband, Nathan Reis, cofounded a company that was then used during the Covid era to funnel bogus PPP loans into their pockets. The DOJ caught her, and now she is facing serious consequences.
Describing the scheme in a press release, the DOJ revealed that Hockridge had founded the company at issue during the Covid crisis, and purported to help businesses obtain PPP loans. It said, “According to evidence presented at trial, Stephanie Hockridge, also known as Stephanie Reis, 42, of Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, and previously of Arizona, co-founded Blueacorn in April 2020, purportedly to assist small businesses and individuals in obtaining PPP loans.”
Continuing, the DOJ statement explained how they faked all sorts of documents to obtain fraudulent loans for small businesses, and then charged them a kickback fee. It said, “To get larger loans for certain PPP applicants, Hockridge and her co-conspirators fabricated documents, including payroll records, tax documentation and bank statements. Hockridge and her co-conspirators charged borrowers kickbacks based on a percentage of the funds received.”
Further, the statement explained how they coached clients through illegally obtaining fraudulent PPP loans, saying, “As part of the scheme, Hockridge and others offered a personalized service to their clients called ‘VIPPP’ to help potential borrowers complete PPP loan applications. Hockridge recruited co-conspirators to work as VIPPP referral agents and coach borrowers on how to submit false PPP loan applications.”
Altogether, that meant that the ABC news anchor and the others with whom she was working submitted a great many fraudulent PPP loan applications so as to obtain the huge sums for their clients, and thus themselves.
Noting as much, the DOJ’s statement provided, “To get more kickbacks from borrowers and a higher percentage of lender fees from the SBA, Hockridge and her co-conspirators submitted PPP loan applications that they knew contained materially false information.”
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Additionally, the DOJ noted that the stupendously large scale of the fraud in which Hockridge and her co-conspirators engaged, describing the tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent loans that they helped process. It said, “In total, Hockridge and her coconspirators processed over $63 million in fraudulent PPP loans.” As a result, “On June 20, a jury found Hockridge guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.”
It was her sentencing that came on November 21. Describing that sentence, the DOJ said, “A co-founder of a lender service provider was sentenced to 10 years in prison for participating in a scheme to fraudulently obtain over $63 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The defendant was also ordered to pay over $63 million in restitution.”
Watch a news report on her here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video