David Hines Miami man who bought Lamborghini with $3.9M COVID-19 PPP relief money gets 6 years jail after spending ill gotten federal financial assistance.
A Miami, Florida man was sentenced Wednesday to more than six years jail for stealing $3.9 million from the federal COVID relief program, the Justice Department said.
David Hines, 29, spent the ill gotten funds on a Lamborghini Huracán, ‘dating websites, luxury jewelry, clothing retailers and Miami Beach resorts,’ the feds said.
Hines was forced to forfeit $3.4 million and the Lamborghini, which he paid $318,000 for, according to a Justice Department press release.
The man’s fake cash grab which requires meeting federal grant criteria may have worked out had it not been for a hit and run the man was involved in while driving the flashy Italian sports car in July.
Hines ran a moving company business in South Florida, and had applied for the Federal Paycheck Protection Program loans at the height of last year’s coronavirus crises that far exceeded his actual business expenses, the Justice Department said. He pleaded guilty in February.
Seasoned fraud
Hines who had up to 70 employees was given forgivable loans totaling $3.9 million which he claimed he needed the for employee payroll purposes.
Hines had initially requested $13.5 million in seven PPP loan applications, claiming his four companies needed the funds to continue paying employees.
‘Those purported employees either did not exist or earned a fraction of what Hines claimed,’ a filed affidavit at the time stated.
The charging document went on to note that customers have claimed on the Better Business Bureau website that two of Hines’ companies used, ‘bait-and-switch practices and other deceitful activities.’
Feds have called South Florida the center of COVID relief fraud, according to the Herald.
