For the second time in the past month, Haas Law obtained a declination of federal prosecution for an alleged PPP Fraud case. In each separate matter, our clients were notified that they were targets of a federal investigation. In one investigation, the federal government froze over $700,000 of the client’s funds and alleged that he misappropriated PPP funds for his own benefit. In the second investigation, the government alleged that the client misappropriated over $1 million of PPP proceeds.
In each matter, Haas Law was able to establish that there were brick and mortar locations for each entity that obtained the respective PPP loans and that real employees were paid with loan proceeds. The government’s sticking point in each case was that the client took distributions from their respective businesses. After months of work, including numerous interviews of the clients’ own accountants who authorized the distributions, the government declined to prosecute either case.
The best results happen when a client is never charged with the offense but that does not mean the work does not happen to avoid the charge. If either client sat back and waited, they would have been indicted and would have lost their businesses. Instead, they called Haas Law (one client called at 7:00 a.m.) and Haas Law was able to go to work showing that no crime had been committed.