Feds: Atlanta man recruited business owners to commit $3 million PPP fraud
An Atlanta man who recruited a group of business owners in Georgia and South Carolina to defraud the federal Paycheck Protection Program for $3 million was caught when he used identical paperwork to apply for the loans, officials said.
Rodericque Thompson, 45, was sentenced to five years in federal prison for leading the conspiracy, which ensnared 10 co-defendants, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Ryan Buchanan said in a news release. Thompson and nine others pleaded guilty, while one South Carolina-based defendant was found guilty at trial.
The conspiracy defrauded the PPP, part of the CARES Act meant to provide financial relief to businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Buchanan said. The U.S. Department of Justice has so far recovered $1.2 million of the stolen funds.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Thompson recruited nine business owners to participate in the scheme. Six were based in metro Atlanta, while the other three were located in South Carolina. Thompson offered the owners an even split of the loan amounts if they allowed him to use their information to apply for loans of $300,000 each.
Thompson then submitted nearly identical applications for each of the businesses, according to Buchanan. The applications claimed that each business had 16 employees and $120,000 in monthly payroll costs. In support of those claims, identical fraudulent tax returns were submitted with each application.
When the loans were approved, each of the business owners wrote fraudulent payroll checks in order to have the loans forgiven, Buchanan said. One of the co-defendants in the case, 50-year-old Antonio Hosey, was not a business owner but acted as an intermediary by recruiting check cashers and handling the exchange of checks and cash.
Thompson was sentenced to five years in prison followed by five years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $2.7 million in restitution. Hosey was sentenced to a year in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
The South Carolina defendant who faced trial, 32-year-old Travis Crosby, was found guilty and sentenced to nearly four years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. He is the owner of Faithful Transport Services, LLC.
The remaining co-defendants each received sentences of 12-15 months. They include:
- Kenneth Wright Jr., 34, of Atlanta, owner of Lux Realty and Lux Automotive;
- Thomas Wilson, 32, of Atlanta, owner of Rare Breed Nation, LLC;
- Micah Baisden, 31, of Atlanta, owner of PowerHouse Sports Academy;
- Stanley Dorceus, 36, of Marietta, owner of Elevate Horizon, LLC;
- Timothy Williams, 32, of Atlanta, owner of Bamigi Brand, LLC;
- Tabronx Smith, 45, of Buford, owner of Market Yourself, LLC;
- Keith Maloney Jr., 35, of Yemassee, South Carolina, owner of KMJ Transport, LLC;
- and Mark Stewart, 56, of Greenville, South Carolina, owner of the Infinity Group of SC, LLC.
About the Author
Henri Hollis is a reporter and restaurant critic for the Food & Dining team. Formerly a freelance writer and photographer with a focus on food and restaurants, he joined the AJC full-time in January 2021, first covering breaking news. He is a lifelong Atlantan and a graduate of Georgia Tech.
