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Westchester County residents Alicia Ayers and her mother, Andrea Ayers, both of Mount Vernon, were found guilty of submitting more than 300 fraudulent applications for US Small Business Administration Economic Injury Disaster Loans.
Andrea Ayers was a former Code Enforcement Officer for the City of Mount Vernon Police Department.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress expanded the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Program to provide low-interest loans of up to $2 million to small businesses.
Applicants were also allowed to request and receive an advance of approximately $1,000 per employee, up to a maximum of $10,000.
Based on the fraudulent EIDL applications, the SBA made advance payments of approximately $1.7 million to the applicants, who then kicked back a portion of the advance payments to Alicia Ayers and Andrea Ayers, according to Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
In June and July 2020, Alicia Ayers and her mother used the identities of approximately 300 other individuals to submit approximately 315 online applications to the SBA, seeking over $3 million of funds through the SBA’s EIDL Program.
They falsely represented to the SBA that the applicants were the owners of businesses with 10 or more employees, which was a lie. They knew that the applicants did not employ the number of people reported, and the majority of the applicants did not own businesses or have any employees.
As a result, Alicia Ayers and Andrea Ayers were convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and making false statements.
Alicia Ayers was sentenced to two years in prison followed by six months of home confinement, while Andrea Ayers was sentenced to 42 months in prison.
Both were also ordered to pay the SBA $1.7 million in restitution and forfeiture. Additionally, they were each sentenced to three years of supervised release.
“These defendants stole from a taxpayer-funded program intended to help small businesses that were in desperate need of assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic," US Attorney for the SDNY Damian Williams said. "As their convictions and sentences reflect, my Office is determined to continue to work to bring to justice those who exploit and defraud government programs during a national emergency.
"I thank the FBI and the career prosecutors of this office for their outstanding work investigating and prosecuting this scheme.”
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