A Colorado man was sentenced to 15 months in prison for laundering more than $200,000 in COVID-19 relief funds during the pandemic’s peak, federal officials announced last week.
William Chadwick, a 63-year-old man from Akron, laundered $228,284.09 in funds stolen from COVID-19 relief programs between May 2020 and August 2022, according to the plea agreement.
The man took a deal and pleaded guilty in June to one count of money laundering in the “romance fraud scheme,” and was sentenced to 15 months in prison in September, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado.
More than 100 applications for unemployment insurance were submitted on behalf of other people from addresses tied to Chadwick, totaling more than $1.4 million in approved benefits, the document stated.
Chadwick also received a $20,000 Paycheck Protection Program business loan for a fake business and nearly $70,000 in emergency rental assistance, according to the document.
He used the stolen money to send cryptocurrency and gift cards to an unidentified woman he met online, federal officials said.
“Laundering money which was stolen from the federal government is a crime against every hard-working, tax-paying citizen of the United States,” Colorado U.S. Attorney Peter McNeilly said in a statement. “Our office is committed to prosecuting those who look to prosper off fraud against the government.”
Law enforcement interviewed Chadwick at his home in June 2022, and the man voluntarily turned over more than a dozen unemployment insurance benefit cards, receipts for the money he pulled from ATMs and more than 100 gift cards purchased using the stolen funds, according to the plea agreement.
Chadwick continued laundering the stolen money for at least two months after, federal officials said.
The maximum sentence for the money laundering charge that Chadwick pleaded guilty to is 20 years in prison and $500,000 in restitution.
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