Damara Holness, 28, daughter of congressional candidate Democrat Dale Holness, appeared at a federal court in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday where she faced serious allegations.
There, Holness told Judge Rodolfo Ruiz she would plead guilty to fraudulently obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars that had been intended to help small businesses survive the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Holness admitted she applied for a $300,000 forgivable federally-guaranteed Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan for her company Holness Consulting, Inc.
It added: “To justify the requested loan amount, Holness claimed in the online loan application, and through supporting fraudulent payroll tax forms, that her company employed 18 people and spent an average of $120,000 each month on payroll.”
But, it was later discovered Holness Consulting Inc had no employees and no payroll expenses.
Once the money landed in Holness’s account in July 2020, she allegedly spent months fabricating a paper trail to make it appear the company did in fact have employees and was spending the money on approved expenses.
The DOJ statement continued: “Holness issued checks from the company bank account made out to others who agreed, for a fee, to help with the fraud.”
Following Holness’s instructions, the people who received the checks would endorse and return them to her. During the time of the alleged fraud, Holness served as President of the Broward County Democratic Black Caucus.
Holness will be sentenced over the charge of conspiring to commit wire fraud on January 20, 2022. Should Holness be convicted, she faces upwards of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act was designed to give emergency assistance to Americans who suffered financially during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the main levers of relief were the PPP loans small businesses could apply for via forgivable loans in a bid to keep them afloat.
But, in May 2021, the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force was established to investigate and combat pandemic-related fraud.
According to a DOJ spokesperson: “The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts.”
