Good day all. For the last year we have been “learing” about the massive levels of fraud that has been carried out by immigrants, primarily from Somalia. This has been happening for years mostly in Democrat run cities and states. To date, no elected officials have been charged, until now.
Friday, June 14th, the mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts was indicted and arrested for stealing $1.5 million dollars from the SBA Covid funds. Here are the details from Fox News:
The mayor of a Boston suburb is facing federal wire fraud and money laundering charges for allegedly using more than $1.5 million in pandemic-era small business loans to pad his campaign account, pay personal taxes, and settle high-interest real estate debts.
Lawrence Mayor Brian DePena, 61, was arrested Friday morning following an investigation into his alleged misuse of Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) — a program administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) under the CARES Act to assist struggling businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Small Business Administration is another government entity where they’re finding literally billions that have been flat out stolen. From what I’ve been seeing, most of the criminals stealing the money weren’t elected officials.
“Mayor DePena was elected to be a leader for the City of Lawrence,” said U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley. “He was looked up to and trusted by his constituents, but he betrayed that trust through his alleged corruption and lies. Today’s arrest is just another example of our determination to root out fraud by anyone, even public officials, and hold elected officials accountable.”
This isn’t the first Massachusetts Democrat official who has decided that the laws don’t apply to him, her, them, it. There have been a couple of others in the last few years. For instance, an aide to the Govno was running drugs from his office. Then there was the sheriff of Suffolk County. They arrested him for extortion.
This time, it was more of a white collar crime, basically embezzlement, although the actual statutes may be different. Fox goes through what this Progressive Liberal Democrat Mastermind did.
In May 2020, DePena applied for an EIDL on behalf of his business, Tenares Tire Service Inc., an auto service and tire shop in Lawrence. The EIDL funds, which carried a 3.75% interest rate, were only to be used to alleviate pandemic-related financial struggles for businesses.
Interesting. I can see a lot of car service centers having issues because no one was driving very much, thanks to the Biden Lock-down. (For those going “Sputter What about Trump??” Trump wanted a few weeks to allow hospitals to get ready for an influx that generally didn’t happen. The Democrats are the ones that tore up the constitution and basically declared martial law)
The SBA initially approved a $150,000 loan for Tenares Tire in June 2020. However, DePena sought additional funding months later upon facing cash flow issues. In April 2021, he applied for an increase and was approved for a $350,000 modification. A second loan modification followed in October 2021 that brought the total to $1.1 million.
Apparently, there was some sort of an issue and DePena couldn’t access the funds for a month. When that happened, DePena panicked.
“Brother, call me, I’m in trouble. I don’t want to pressure you, but I don’t have time to wait for this loan. I’m in your hands,” DePena allegedly wrote in a translated Spanish text message to a financial advisor assisting with the loan application.
“I know I’m bothering you a lot, but I have no other option,” he added. “Only you can give me what I need.”
That sounds like a drug addict trying to score his next fix. Eventually, the funds were released and this is when DePena began stealing them.
Upon receiving the funds, prosecutors claim DePena began diverting them. Between August and October 2021, he allegedly transferred nearly $90,000 from his business accounts to personal accounts, subsequently writing checks totaling over $42,000 directly to “The Committee to Elect Brian DePena”.
In addition, officials said he used the taxpayer funds to pay off personal debts, including $85,000 paid to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to settle personal back taxes and another $883,293 to pay off high-interest mortgages on personal properties he owned in Lawrence.
Granted, considering the previous administration and how they were just shoveling taxpayer funds out the door with no real, or any, oversight, DePena probably thought he would get away with it. Of course, he would have had to pay it back, and if he had, he probably would have gotten away with it.
As of Aug. 5, DePena had made only 16 payments toward the Tenares Tire EIDL, totaling $130,160. Since the payments went toward the accrued interest, the outstanding loan balance remains at approximately $1.65 million, the complaint states.
What a surprise. Not only is he a crook, he’s also a deadbeat. This is on top of being just plain stupid. Of course, he’s an elected Masshole Democrat politician, so being stupid is more of a job requirement than a detriment.
As of this post, DePena hasn’t resigned from office. If he is convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison, all due to being a greedy, good for nothing Massachusetts political hack.
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
