A Florida Man Reportedly Used Covid-19 Small Business Loans to Buy $318,497 Lamborghini, Luxury Goods
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It is increasingly rare for the U.S. to come together over a common enemy (like, a global pandemic couldn’t even do that), but allow me to offer up David Tyler Hines. The 29-year-old Florida man applied for $13.5 million in taxpayer funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—which sought to help small businesses keep employees on their payroll during coronavirus closures—and was approved for nearly $4 million in three forgivable, low-interest PPP loans despite the fact that he either did not actually have any employees to retain or paid them pennies compared to what he filed for, BuzzFeed reports. Not only that, but he has been charged with bank fraud after allegedly using the money on luxury goods for himself. Gotta love a huckster who uses covid-19 as an opportunity to go shopping!
Hines maintains that the loans were taken out to pay 70 employees of a few moving businesses he managed in Miami, but the criminal complaint makes it clear that investigators found no signs of any wages paid between 2015 and 2020.