A woman from Berkeley, Missouri, has been sentenced to two years in prison and fined $75,000 for committing fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. District Judge Joshua M. Divine handed down the sentence to Bridgette Johnson, 61, on Wednesday. In addition to the prison term and fine, Johnson was ordered to repay $129,000 that she obtained through fraudulent means.
According to court documents, Johnson applied for and received $120,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) by falsely claiming that her business, Compassion at Home, would use the funds to retain employees and cover business expenses. She later requested loan forgiveness by asserting that the money had been used appropriately. Instead, Johnson made large cash withdrawals from the account holding the PPP funds.
Johnson also admitted to submitting eight fraudulent applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) from the U.S. Small Business Administration in 2020 and 2021. These applications included inflated profit figures and personnel counts and were filed under her name as well as five of her companies. While most of these applications were rejected after being flagged as fraudulent by the SBA, Johnson did receive $9,000 in advances.
“Johnson used a global pandemic as an opportunity to enrich herself of approximately $130,000 at the expense of small businesses that desperately needed that money to pay their employees and keep their operations from shuttering,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Ladendorf wrote in a sentencing memo.
Johnson pleaded guilty in October to one count of wire fraud.
The case was investigated by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), with prosecution led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Ladendorf.
Individuals with information about pandemic-related fraud are encouraged to contact the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline at 866-720-5721 or submit a report online at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
