Cars, Tractors, and Luxury Watches Forfeited After Pleading Guilty to $12.4 Million PPP Fraud – Fraud Friday
April 5, 2024
Delaney Sexton
Contributing Editor
Cars, Tractors, and Luxury Watches Forfeited After Pleading Guilty to $12.4 Million PPP Fraud – Fraud Friday
Between 2017 and 2018, Tod Ray Keilholz obtained three business loans totaling more than $3.5 million from Hawthorne Bank. His businesses began failing afterward, and his financial concerns started growing. The loans fell into default, and sub-contractors were suing him for unpaid invoices. In early 2020, the bank initiated foreclosure proceedings, but he delayed the foreclosure proceedings and paid off the loans and other past-due debts using PPP loan proceeds.
During PPP, Keilholz received almost $12.5 million for his four businesses. He failed to disclose in each of his PPP applications that he had ownership in the other three businesses. His loan applications falsely stated that the businesses were in operation on February 15, 2020, and were eligible for a PPP loan. Keilholz inflated the income of his businesses and claimed employees that either did not work for him or did not exist at all. There was another PPP loan application seeking $7.8 million that the bank declined.
$1.7 million was approved for TRK Construction, $3.6 million was approved for TL Builders, $3.9 million was approved for Project Design, and $3.2 million was approved for TRK Valpo. He admitted that the PPP loans were not used for payroll or other eligible expenses and instead, all or part of his business debts were satisfied with the PPP loan proceeds.
Under the terms of his guilty plea, Keilholz must forfeit property involved in or derived form the proceeds of his bank fraud scheme:
- Two properties in Jefferson City, Missouri
- A property in Valparaiso, Indiana
- A property in La Porte, Indiana
- 2020 Chevrolet Silverado
- Two 2021 Chevrolet Silverados
- 2019 BMW X5
- 2020 John Deere ZTrak
- 2020 John Deere Tractor
- Kubota Compact Track Loader
- Gents 43mm IWC Schaffhausen Perpetual Chronograph wristwatch
- 2 Gents stainless steel Rolex Sea-Dweller self-winding automatic diver’s watches
- Gents Citizen Eco-Drive Radio-controlled world time self-winding automatic watch with sapphire crystal
He pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud, one count of money laundering, and one count of aggravated identity theft in March 2024.