A soldier has been charged after allegedly obtaining two fraudulent COVID-related relief loans to fund what he purported to be a pie enterprise known as “Granny’s Delight.”
Per court documents, Sgt. 1st Class Crispin Antonio Abad, 42, was hit with an eight-count indictment — or, approximately one indictment per slice — by a federal grand jury after allegedly submitting two fraudulent PPP loan applications in April 2021, when he was on active duty at Fort Gregg-Adams, Virginia.
Paycheck Protection Program loans were distributed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to provide small businesses with necessary resources to preserve payroll and maintain staffing.
Leveraging what he reportedly claimed to be exactly $100,000 in GamGam’s pie-based revenue in 2020, Abad allegedly submitted a fabricated IRS tax return to the Small Business Administration to support the loan request, a process that netted him $41,000 in the end, according to the Justice Department.
Exceedingly detailed processing by the IRS, however, revealed that Abad never submitted the same falsified tax return to match the version received by the Small Business Administration, the Justice Department said. An investigation was subsequently launched.
Post-receipt of culinary-fueled $41,000, meanwhile, Abad allegedly embarked on a spending spree across the mid-Atlantic, paying for visits to the Fort Gregg-Adams Golf Course and West Virginia’s Ace Adventure Resort and withdrawing hundreds of dollars at an MGM Casino in National Harbor, Maryland. There were also alleged purchases at Sunglass Hut, Reeds Jeweler, Virginia ABC Store — a liquor store chain — and Victoria’s Secret.
Investigators also uncovered loan schemes run by two other active duty soldiers, Fort Gregg-Adams-based Maj. Eduwell Jenkins and Sgt. Malaysia Stubbs, who similarly obtained COVID-19 relief loans through fraudulent claims submitted to the Paycheck Protection Program.
Entering guilty pleas to defrauding the Small Business Administration of $20,000 each, Jenkins, 42, and Stubbs, 30, face maximum penalties of five years in prison. If found guilty, Abad faces a maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars.
J.D. Simkins is the executive editor of Military Times and Defense News, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.
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