A former Virginia state employee will spend nearly 6 years in prison for stealing $1.8 million in COVID relief funds.
According to the DOJ website, Sadie Mitchell was sentenced Monday to 70 months in prison for defrauding the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) Program, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.
Mitchell, 30, submitted 5 PPP applications, containing false statements, to a bank that approved the applications.
Prosecutors say she filed for $1 million in PPP loans using victims’ personal identifying information that she obtained from her job as a state government employee.
With the assistance of her co-conspirator, Mitchell filed at least 20 fraudulent unemployment applications using the personal identifying information of prison inmates.
Mitchell’s co-conspirator, Lamar Jones, was fatally shot in December 2021.
Mitchell falsely claimed she owned businesses that were in operation on February 15, 2020. She exaggerated her business income and the number of employees who worked for her.
She is accused of accepting PPP loans for businesses that had no customers or employees.
She reportedly used the stolen funds to purchase luxury goods, including gold and diamond jewelry, luxury handbags, shoes and designer clothing for herself, federal prosecutors said.
