Diamond Davies, COVID-19 Loan Scheme, Iowa 2024

A former Cedar Rapids resident has been sentenced to federal prison in connection with a COVID-19 pandemic loan scheme.

Diamond Davies, 24, of Maple Grove, Minnesota, was sentenced on March 8, 2024, to six months in federal prison for her role in helping individuals procure more than 30 false and fraudulent COVID-19 pandemic loans, valued at more than $600,000.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act is a federal law enacted in late March 2020 that provided emergency financial assistance, including Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan funds, to the millions of Americans who were suffering the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Evidence at Davies’s plea and sentencing hearings showed that, over a two-month period in 2021, Davies helped to facilitate approximately 50 fraudulent PPP loan applications with a total value of approximately $1 million. Of these fraudulent PPP applications, over 30 were successful, and the government and its participating lenders in the PPP lost over $600,000.

To obtain the fraud proceeds, false, fraudulent, and fictitious documents and statements, including fake tax documents, were submitted to various lending institutions in support of the PPP loans for the PPP applicants. Davies helped collect a fee (a portion of the fraudulent loan proceeds) from some of the PPP applicants.

Davies was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams. Davies was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. She was ordered to make $651,582 in restitution to the Small Business Administration and one of its participating lenders. She must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term.

Davies is being held in United States Marshal’s custody until she can be transported to a federal prison. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Timothy L. Vavricek and investigated by the Small Business Administration, Office of the Inspector General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndia/pr/former-cedar-rapids-resident-sentenced-federal-prison-covid-19-pandemic-loan-scheme