NC man lied to get COVID loans and robbed a financial institution, feds say

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A 35-year-old man has been indicted in North Carolina on costs he invented companies to qualify for pandemic aid and robbed a financial institution, then spent the cash shopping for cryptocurrency and paying payments.

Spenc’r Denard Rickerson, of Claremont, North Carolina, is going through financial institution theft and wire fraud costs within the Western District of North Carolina, in line with federal court docket paperwork unsealed on Tuesday, March 22. The case facilities on allegations Rickerson filed quite a few faux functions for loans throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and robbed a financial institution in close by Newton.

Claremont, which is dwelling to roughly 1,500 residents, is about 43 miles north of Charlotte. Prosecutors stated he beforehand lived and labored in Mooresville, about 30 miles outdoors Charlotte.

Rickerson is in federal custody and couldn’t be reached for touch upon March 22, and knowledge relating to his protection legal professional was not instantly obtainable.

In keeping with the indictment, Rickerson labored for an organization in Mooresville and lived in each Claremont and Mooresville from 2018 to 2020. He was positioned on a go away of absence simply earlier than the pandemic hit in March 2020.

Rickerson acquired unemployment advantages on and off over the subsequent 12 months, prosecutors stated.

Congress handed the Coronavirus Assist, Aid, and Financial Safety Act across the similar time Rickerson stopped working. The bundle included billions of {dollars} in forgivable loans for small companies referred to as the Paycheck Safety Program, or PPP, and an growth of the Financial Harm Catastrophe Mortgage, or EIDL, program.

In June 2020, the federal government stated, Rickerson submitted an software for an EIDL during which he claimed to run an organization within the “enterprise providers” sector. He acquired a $53,400 mortgage consequently, which prosecutors stated he spent largely on money withdrawals and buying cryptocurrency.

Rickerson tried unsuccessfully to file a number of different EIDL functions in January 2021, prosecutors stated, earlier than he pivoted to the Paycheck Safety Program in March 2021.

In keeping with the indictment, Rickerson claimed to run a enterprise doing single-family dwelling development and stated he wanted the PPP funds to cowl payroll bills. The federal government subsequently gave him $20,833.

Simply two days earlier than he filed that software, prosecutors stated Rickerson robbed a BB&T financial institution on Most important Avenue in Newton.

The Justice Division didn’t say how a lot cash he took throughout the financial institution theft, however Rickerson was in the end accused of stealing greater than $74,200 in COVID-19 aid.

Courtroom paperwork present he was arrested on Monday, March 21, and his subsequent court docket look will probably be on March 25.

If convicted, Rickerson faces as much as 20 years in federal jail on the wire fraud cost and 25 years for the financial institution theft cost.

The indictment follows comparable costs in opposition to a Charlotte girl, Nkhenge Shropshire, who’s accused of submitting not less than least 10 fraudulent functions for EIDLs. A grand jury indicted Shropshire on Thursday, March 17 — the identical day a federal jury in Charlotte convicted a neighborhood restaurateur and his son on costs they stole $1.7 million in pandemic aid from taxpayers.

Comply with extra of our reporting on Coronavirus in North Carolina


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Hayley Fowler is a reporter at The Charlotte Observer masking breaking and real-time information throughout North and South Carolina. She has a journalism diploma from the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and beforehand labored as a authorized reporter in New York Metropolis earlier than becoming a member of the Observer in 2019.





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