Mom and Daughter Sentenced to a Combined 5.5 Years for $1.7 Million EIDL Fraud – Fraud Friday

May 10, 2024

Delaney Sexton
Contributing Editor

Mom and Daughter Sentenced to a Combined 5.5 Years for $1.7 Million EIDL Fraud – Fraud Friday

Andrea Ayers was a former Code Enforcement Officer for the City of Mount Vernon Police Department, and she is the mother of Alicia Ayers. After carrying out an EIDL fraud scheme, both of them will be paying the price in years of their lives and millions of dollars.

The women used the identities of 300 other individuals to submit 315 fraudulent EIDL applications seeking more than $3 million. These applications falsely represented that the applicants were owners of businesses with at least 10 employees. In reality, they were well aware that most of the applicants did not employ the number of people reported, and most did not own a business or have any employees. As a result of the scheme, SBA advanced payments of $1.69 million to the applicants. The individuals that Alicia and Andrea assisted would then kick back a portion of the loan proceeds. It is believed that they received roughly $500,000 in kickbacks.

Their scheme resulted in losses to the SBA of $1.7 million, but they will be paying far more than that for their crimes. They will both pay forfeiture of $1.69 million and paying $1.69 million in restitution to the SBA. Alicia Ayers was also sentenced to two years in prison and six months of home confinement. Andrea Ayers will be serving 42 months in prison. They were convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and making false statements.

While the Ayerses collectively received almost 6 years in prison, a co-conspirator was let off with a much lighter sentence of time served, that being a single day in custody when she was first arrested in 2021. Traci Proctor was not there at the start of the fraud scheme, but she eventually helped Alicia and Andrea collect information from the applicants. Over 200 applications were filed from Proctor’s computers at her home and her office.

Once Proctor was contacted by the FBI, she began cooperating with them and providing details of how the scheme operated. Additionally, she agreed to testify if the Ayerses went to trial.

As well as time served, Proctor agreed to forfeit $39,000 and pay restitution of $930,000.

Sources:
U.S. Attorney’s Office Press Release
lohud Article

Read our previous reporting:
Fraud Friday – Mom & Daughter Duo Agree to Forfeit $1.7 Million for EIDL Fraud – 1/5/2024