(The Middle Sq.) — An Illinois girl is ready to be arraigned Thursday after federal prosecutors indicted her on fraud prices associated to greater than $440,000 she obtained via federal and state pandemic-relief applications.
Prosecutors stated she used the proceeds to purchase luxurious objects, equivalent to a purple leather-based Gucci canine collar and a yacht.
Prosecutors stated Kimberly Ray-Duncan, 54, of South Holland, defrauded the Paycheck Safety Program, Financial Damage Catastrophe Mortgage Program and the Illinois Again to Enterprise Grant Program. Within the indictment, prosecutors stated she spent a lot of the cash on a 2018 Regal 35 Sport Coupe yacht that she named “Chrysanthemum.”
She put a $31,000 down fee on the boat in Bolingbrook in early Could 2021 in Bolingbrook and later made a $254,000 fee towards the yacht, in accordance with court docket information. The yacht has sleeping room for six individuals.
Along with the yacht, prosecutors search to get better Prada, Gucci and Saint Laurent purses; purple leather-based canine collars by Gucci; Burberry, Gucci, Giorgio Armani and Prada sun shades; and MCM, Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent, Gucci and Prada scarves, in accordance with court docket information.
Ray-Duncan faces six counts of wire fraud, three counts of cash laundering and two counts of participating in financial transactions involving criminally derived property, in accordance with the indictment.
Prosecutors declare she utilized for loans via a sequence of corporations, a few of which did not exist. She additionally lied concerning the corporations’ variety of staff, revenues, working bills and payroll. Prosecutors stated she despatched falsified financial institution statements, tax returns and different paperwork to an organization to get the federal and state loans.
Ray-Duncan is ready to be arraigned at 1 p.m. Thursday
Ray-Duncan’s legal professional, Joan Arthetta Hill-McClain, declined to touch upon case, however stated Ray-Duncan desires to be handled pretty.
“My shopper simply desires to be handled like every other American citizen below our legal guidelines and allowed the identical privileges and rights that the Founding Fathers afforded to residents and never chattel,” Hill-McClain stated in an e mail to The Middle Sq.. “She is an American citizen who simply desires to be handled pretty. I’m certain that you simply heard of Maya Angelou’s ‘I do know why the Caged Chicken Sings.’ Though the guide was an autobiography, the title emanates the historical past of African Individuals in our schooling, monetary, and judicial methods.”
Underneath the CARES Act, a Paycheck Safety Program mortgage permits the curiosity and principal to be forgiven if companies spend a certain quantity of the proceeds on important bills, equivalent to payroll and hire.
The COVID-19 Financial Damage Catastrophe Mortgage Program supplies mortgage help or grants to cowl working capital and different working bills. Underneath the Illinois Division of Commerce and Financial Alternative’s Again to Enterprise Grant Program, small companies may apply for grants to cowl misplaced income because of financial disruptions associated to the COVID-19 pandemic.