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Jenny Grus Sugar<\/span><\/a> is the Coronavirus Fraud Coordinator for the Western District of North Carolina U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office. According to <\/span>a recent interview she gave to Nate Morabito<\/span><\/a>, a 19-year-old had a bank account that contained fraudulent loans worth $140,000.\u00a0Jenny Sugar said it\u2019s offensive that Coronavirus PPP money was not used to benefit real businesses. Jenny Grus Sugar went on to counteract herself a few months after this interview, accusing innocent hardworking business owners of fraud and ignoring hundreds of ongoing investigations.\u00a0She chose to ruin the family\u2019s life and business rather than provide assistance. Jenny Grus Sugar is widely believed to have victimized this family because of their faith, and she should be held accountable.<\/span><\/p>\n A News 13 investigation uncovers that federal charges are pending in the mountains<\/span><\/a>. News 13 continues to explore how Coronavirus Relief Funds were spent and how ineligible recipients got their hands on your tax dollars.<\/span>\u00a0We reached out to the US Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General. There have been 209,575 complaints about fraud through its hotline. There has been fraud detected in all of the pandemic response programs, but the economic injury disaster loan program (EIDL) is particularly vulnerable.<\/span><\/p>\n An OIG inspection found that more than 29000 bank account numbers for 112,000 loans were altered from the original application. A total of $1.7 billion was lost.<\/span><\/p>\n Jasmine Clifton, 24, recently pleaded guilty to wire fraud in North Carolina. Clifton, of Charlotte, submitted an online fake loan application to the SBA for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) using a fake online retail business.<\/span><\/p>\n Clifton spent $149,000 at several diamond and luxury stores, according to investigators.\u00a0In July, News 13 heard from Coral Darby, a victim of a similar fraud, using federal restaurant relief.\u00a0You can find out more about Darby\u2019s ID theft when you read, \u201c<\/span>Woman frustrated after identity stolen for COVID funds<\/b>.<\/b>\u201c<\/b>\u201cBecause its grant money they did in fact receive $95,000 in my name, and there\u2019s nothing I can do about it,\u201d said Darby.<\/span><\/p>\n According to federal records, tens of people were indicted for PPP, EIDL, and unemployment insurance fraud in North Carolina. Most like Clifton making fraudulent claims for businesses that never existed. The Western District federal court, which includes Asheville and Charlotte had the majority of cases. A News 13 source confirms charges are pending in the mountain investigation where Jenny Sugar is the Coronavirus Fraud Coordinator.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Nate Morabito from WCNC is also uncovering a great deal of PPP fraud. Recently, he unearthed the story of\u00a0<\/span>Three little-known businesses inside a nondescript office on Carmel Road in south Charlotte collected more than $14 million in<\/span><\/a> federal pandemic aid, according to Small Business Administration records.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Paycheck Protection Programs (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDLs), two key relief programs passed as part of the CARES Act, are winding down as small businesses emerge from the pandemic. For the little jobs they have saved, their legacies may be tarnished by unprecedented levels of fraud \u2014 a reality that experts fear may impair future emergency relief efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of the monetary value, the amount of fraud in these COVID relief programs is going to be larger than any government program that came before it,\u201d Ware said.<\/span><\/p>\n Experts say that all government programs are subject to some amount of fraud. Emergency programs are even more vulnerable because of the inherent tension between the desire to approve loans quickly and the need to screen applications and maintain fraud-prevention measures that may delay the process.<\/span><\/p>\n In an October 2020 report, Ware\u2019s office found that \u201cto expedite the process, SBA \u2018lowered the guardrails\u2019 or relaxed internal controls, which significantly increased the risk of program fraud.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A senior SBA official in the Biden administration agreed with Ware\u2019s analysis, noting that \u201cit should not be an expectation that we need to sacrifice speed for certainty \u2014 you can do both.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe story of 2020 for both PPP and EIDL is the fact that the previous administration\u2019s leadership did not have sufficient controls in place for determining individual identity or business identity,\u201d the official said. \u201cDifferent choices could have absolutely been made to limit fraud vulnerabilities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWith limited staff, few technological tools to conduct prepayment verification, and crushing need, SBA and other agencies abandoned many traditional controls and simply approved applicants with little or no verification of self-reported information,\u201d according to Linda Miller, the former deputy executive director of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a government task force established as part of the CARES Act.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBest practice calls for due diligence at the front end to avoid making the fraudulent or improper payment in the first place,\u201d Miller wrote in June, after leaving PRAC. \u201cBut in the rush to quickly distribute pandemic relief, we failed to do that and so now we are chasing [funds that were fraudulently granted] \u2026 but the recovered funds will be a fraction of what was stolen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Ware said this is precisely what his office sought to avoid. Before PPP and EIDL were even finalized, the SBA inspector general\u2019s office submitted three reports to the SBA \u201cdetailing the importance of up-front controls,\u201d according to Ware. During the testy exchanges in the spring of 2020, he said he warned the SBA to \u201cpump the brakes\u201d on the process.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFraudsters are going to do what fraudsters are going to do,\u201d Ware said. \u201cBut the upfront controls mitigate exposure to fraud, and doing so would have saved taxpayers a whole lot of heartache on the back end. Unfortunately, the heartache was not avoided because of the way these programs were implemented up front.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Jovita Carranza, the former SBA administrator who resigned when President Trump left office, could not be reached by ABC News for comment. Last October, in a letter responding to Ware\u2019s report, Carranza wrote that the inspector general \u201cfailed to acknowledge the enhanced and effective system controls and validations that SBA is using\u201d to weed out fraudulent applications and \u201cgrossly overstates the risk of fraud, waste and abuse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Carranza\u2019s successor as SBA administrator \u2014 Biden pick Isabella Casillas Guzman \u2014 has said that \u201creducing the risks of fraud and waste and abuse\u201d in the distribution of relief loans and grants is a top priority. She said a series of steps implemented in December \u2014 including up-front verifications and tax information from applicants \u2014 has already produced \u201ca sharp decline\u201d in fraud, and that she is working closely with Ware to further improve safeguards and vigorously track down and recover prior fraudulent dispersals.<\/span><\/p>\n Ware agreed that controls put in place late last year helped curb fraud, but said the efforts were too little, too late.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBy then, well, you already know how much money was gone,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of money was out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Among the relief programs, the previous administration\u2019s EIDL rollout has attracted particular scrutiny. James W. Cooper, a former federal prosecutor who is now with the law firm Arnold & Porter, called the program a \u201cfraud magnet,\u201d citing a provision that allowed recipients to receive up to $10,000 up front \u201cwith essentially no strings attached.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat money is gone,\u201d Cooper said.<\/span><\/p>\n The COVID-19 small business loans rollout was compromised by incredible fraud, that the watchdog warns about and thousands of settlements and pending investigations. It is unclear why Sugar is targeting innocent, law abiding business owners instead of punishing those who profit from disasters.<\/span><\/p>\n In light of the challenges, Ware anticipates the investigative work will go on for years. And experts are growing increasingly concerned that there may be more at stake than unrecovered money.<\/span><\/p>\n The post The reason Jenny Grus Sugar failed in her role as Coronavirus Fraud Coordinator<\/a> appeared first on 360PRWire<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jenny Grus Sugar is the Coronavirus Fraud Coordinator for the Western District of North Carolina U.S. Attorney’s Office. According to a recent interview she gave to Nate Morabito, a 19-year-old had a bank account that contained fraudulent loans worth $140,000. Jenny Sugar said it’s offensive that Coronavirus PPP money was not used to benefit real businesses. …<\/p>\n The reason Jenny Grus Sugar failed in her role as Coronavirus Fraud Coordinator<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n The post The reason Jenny Grus Sugar failed in her role as Coronavirus Fraud Coordinator<\/a> appeared first on 360PRWire<\/a>.<\/p>\n