A Baton Rouge woman fraudulently took more than $440,000 in COVID-19 relief funds and spent it on car down payments and other personal expenses, the U.S. Attorney's office of the Middle District Court said Friday.
Linda Gurvin, 56, attempted to obtain more than $1 million in the scheme, U.S. Attorney Ronald Gathe Jr. said in a news release. She was convicted on wire fraud and unlawful monetary transactions and sentenced to three years in federal prison.
Chief Judge Shelly Dick also sentenced Gurvin to pay more than $496,000 in restitution to the U.S. Small Business Administration and ordered her to forfeit an additional $447,600 in proceeds from her offenses.
A 2020 Range Rover she had purchased with fraudulent proceeds was also seized, the U.S. Attorney said.
Gurvin admitted to submitting six fraudulent applications seeking more than $1 million in federal loans under the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster loan programs, Gathe said in the news release.
Some of the applications had been filed in the names of businesses that Gurvin had formed before the pandemic, but which had closed years earlier.
Other fraudulent applications were made in the names of two new entities — a nonprofit foundation and a church — she formed after the start of the pandemic for the purposes of the scheme, the U.S. attorney said.
As Gurvin received money from the applications, she moved the funds among several bank accounts before making large down payments on the 2020 Land Range Rover and a 2021 Volkswagen Atlas.
The case was investigated by the Treasury Inspector General for tax administration; the FBI and the Small Business Administration — Office of Inspector General.
The case was prosecuted by assistant U.S. attorneys Alan Stevens and J. Brad Casey.