OKLAHOMA CITY — A Florida man pleaded guilty in Oklahoma City’s federal court, was sentenced to prison and ordered to pay restitution for his role in a Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act fraud scheme.
Less than a week later, three eastern Oklahomans were indicted in Tulsa’s federal court on multiple charges arising from suspected CARES Act fraud.
An indictment filed in 2021 accused Andrice Vanec Sainvil, 20, from Margate, Florida, of conspiring with others “known and unknown” to steal the identities of dozens of Oklahomans and use their victims’ names and Social Security numbers to apply for fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits from the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.
This caused the OESC to mail prepaid debit cards containing the fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits to addresses to which the co-conspirators had access throughout the Western District of Oklahoma, U.S. Attorney Robert J. Troester said.
The indictment further alleges that Sainvil and others then retrieved those prepaid debit cards and used them to withdraw thousands of dollars in cash from ATMs throughout Oklahoma City and elsewhere.
For example, during an eight-day period in July 2021 Sainvil made five withdrawals totaling $5,000 using the prepaid debit cards.
During a hearing in OKC’s Western District federal court, Sainvil pleaded guilty to one count of a six-count indictment against him. He admitted he personally possessed four of those fraudulently obtained unemployment benefit debit cards and withdrew more than $1,000 cash from three of them.
Sainvil was sentenced Dec. 29 to two years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. He was further ordered to pay $26,699 in restitution to the OESC, and to forfeit the $2,658 in proceeds he obtained as a result of the scheme.
Five days later, three Oklahomans were indicted in Tulsa’s Northern District federal court on multiple counts of wire fraud in connection with a CARES Act program.
The accused are Edson Vladimir Bellefleur, 36, Tulsa; Malcolm Andre Jones, 30, Broken Arrow; and Legreasha Junice Alexander, 40, Tulsa.
The charges allege that all three, starting in the spring of 2021 and continuing through Jan. 3, 2023, “devised a scheme and artifice” to defraud the U.S. Small Business Administration in order to obtain money and property from the agency.
It is alleged they did so by submitting fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan applications and loan forgiveness applications to SBA-approved lenders in California, Florida and Texas. The PPP was a CARES Act relief program that provided loans to small businesses to enable them to keep employees on their payrolls and pay other expenses.
Bellefleur and Alexander are each named in four counts of wire fraud.
Jones is named in six counts of wire fraud. He also is charged with four counts of aggravated identity theft, accused of using another person’s identification to submit fake PPP loan applications and loan forgiveness applications,
Besides facing federal prison terms, all three suspects, if convicted, will be required to disgorge illegally obtained funds via restitution: Jones, $61,997; Alexander, $48,249; and Bellefleur, $49,999.