Washington state tech executive gets two years for $1.8M coronavirus relief fraud

A Washington state tech executive who previously worked for Microsoft and Amazon was sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison after authorities said he fraudulently obtained nearly $1.8 million in COVID-19 relief funds from the federal government. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington said in a press release that 48-year-old Mukund Mohan was also ordered to pay a $100,000 fine and $1.79 million in restitution as part of his sentence. 

Mohan, who was working as the technology chief for Canadian e-commerce company BuildDirect when he was arrested in July 2020, pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of wire fraud and money laundering from improperly obtaining funds from the Small Business Administration through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

According to court records, Mohan submitted eight fraudulent coronavirus relief applications for a total of $5.5 million in requested loans. 

Prosecutors said that as part of his applications he included fraudulent federal tax filings and other fake and altered documents.

The attorney’s office said that out of Mohan’s eight applications, five were approved, improperly giving him nearly $2 million in coronavirus relief funds intended to help small businesses supplement employee income due to financial hardship amid the pandemic. 

“When individuals like Mr. Mohan abuse the benefit programs under the CARES act to unjustly enrich themselves, they are stealing from those that are the most vulnerable,” Corinne Kalve, the acting special agent in charge of IRS Criminal Investigation, said in a statement Tuesday.

“Today, Mr. Mohan is being held accountable for the harm his greed has caused our friends, our families, and our communities,” Kalve added.

Mohan’s defense attorneys had sought a sentence of only six months, citing his lack of a criminal history and the fact that he only spent $16,500 of the fraudulently obtained loans, according to The Associated Press.   

Since PPP was first launched in March 2020, fraud attorneys at the Department of Justice (DOJ) have prosecuted more than 100 defendants in more than 70 criminal cases, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. 

In total, the DOJ Criminal Division’s Fraud Section has seized $65 million in illegally obtained PPP funds, as well as real estate properties and other items individuals purchased using the money.