A Brentwood-based dental company and its former owners have coughed up $6.3 million in response to allegations of exploiting COVID relief funds. The sum is intended to resolve claims that West Coast Dental Administrative Services LLC, alongside Drs. Soleyman Cohen-Sedgh, Farid Pakravan, and Farhad Manavi, knowingly skirted the False Claims Act. Their misconduct centered on several loans they scooped up under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that they weren't entitled to.
Details released by the U.S. Department of Justice paint a picture of a dental empire that took out seven under-the-table second draw PPP loans and then managed to get forgiveness for these, despite the collective employee count soaring past the 300-person ceiling set for eligible applicants. In addition to the dental outfit, a real estate investment company owned by Dr. Manavi, City Real Estate Holdings Inc., also settled its fair share, paying out $35,149.82 to unshackle potential liability connected to a separate PPP loan.
With a clear-cut aim, the PPP was crafted by Congress as a lifeline for small businesses to keep afloat during the pandemic, ensuring employee wages and other operational costs didn't sink the ship. "Companies such as these that depleted crucial pandemic-assistance funding will be held accountable under the False Claims Act," United States Attorney Martin Estrada stated, stressing that businesses are expected to conduct themselves with "the utmost integrity and compunction."
In concert with the lofty aims of the PPP, the Justice Department remains vigilant in its drive to pin down offenders who thought they could slip through the cracks. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton underlined, "The Justice Department will continue to hold borrowers who improperly received and sought forgiveness of PPP loans accountable for their actions." The Special Agent in Charge Weston King for Small Business Administration’s Office of Inspector General (SBA OIG)’s Western Region followed suit, vowing to stay dogged in the pursuit of those exploiting the SBA's pandemic programs.
Roots of the settlement trace back to whistleblower actions initiated by Relator LLC, a company formed by California-based legal eagles Anoush Hakimi and Peter Shahriari. The duo, under the False Claims Act's qui tam provisions, stood up on behalf of the U.S. and will now grab around $507,000 from the total settlement pot. In a tangle of meticulous coordination, the Civil Division of the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Commercial Litigation Branch, Fraud Section, and the Small Business Administration's Office of General Counsel and Office of the Inspector General pulled together to seal this deal.
