An Instagram model with three children to support is pleading with Internet users to donate money to GoFundMe to help her repay a PPP loan.
The woman named Lakeisha G. applied for an emergency Covid-19 relief loan and was approved for $20,000 in 2020.
Millions of Americans were also approved for loans for small businesses that only exist on paper or in their minds.
Those fraudsters are now scrambling to find the cash to repay the loans or buy time to avoid prison.
Lakeisha launched a GoFundMe page to raise the money to repay her loan. So far, she has raised nearly $4,000 of her $20,000 goal.
The desperate mom wrote: “I got 20k ppp loan now the feds after me plz help I can’t do jail!! I got 3 kids dat need me!!!”
In an update on Monday, she wrote: “Keep the donations coming y’all my kids need me out here frfr [sic].”
In Georgia, hundreds of people have already been charged with submitting false claims to exploit taxpayer funded pandemic relief programs.
On March 24, ten people in Georgia, Washington DC and Maryland were arrested and charged with working as a group “to submit fraudulent loan applications on behalf of non-existent businesses as part of the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).”
The defendants include 38-year-old Alicia Quarterman of Fayetteville, Georgia, who received $490,000. And Katrina Lawson, a former deputy sheriff for Fulton County, Georgia, who obtained at least $224,000 in PPP loans.
“The defendants allegedly abused both programs by submitting fraudulent applications and obtaining thousands of dollars that should have gone to support struggling businesses,” wrote Acting U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine in a statement. “We will work tirelessly to protect the integrity of the EIDL and PPP and to help small businesses stay afloat.”
