Another scammer who wants to cash in on the coronavirus has been exposed. Queens resident Gelpis Joel Peralta-Gutierrez robbed the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in the amount of $ 1.7 million.
The money received under this program is known to be intended to help small businesses affected by the pandemic. In a statement, Peralta-Gutierrez wrote that he needed to cover the salary costs of 62 employees of his company. In reality, as the investigation showed, there was only one employee – himself.
Peralta-Gutierrez, 31, didn’t think too long about what he wrote when he filled out a loan application with the Small Business Administration. So, for example, in the column requiring the official address of the business, he indicated an apartment in the “project” of Queensbridge Houses. With the same extraordinary ease he came up with the fact that in his company J Films HD Inc. 62 people work and that the monthly salary fund is $ 700 thousand. All figures, of course, were taken from the ceiling. What was he counting on? On gullible simpletons. Now he must pay for his delusion. And not only with money that will compensate for the losses of the federal program. Peralta Gutierrez is arrested. His further fate will be decided in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Acting District Attorney Mark Lescaut made it clear that the accused will have a hard time: “My office will not hesitate to bring down the full power of the law on the head of someone who took advantage of the COVID-19 crisis for personal gain.”
Newspaper headline:
How to get rich on coronavirus