The feds have handcuffed a Tampa man over a suspiciously large haul of COVID-19 relief money. Terrence Bradford, aged 46, stands accused of padding his pockets with more than half a million dollars by exploiting pandemic aid programs intended to prop up struggling businesses and keep paychecks flowing. The arrest was made public by the office of Acting United States Attorney Sara C. Sweeney.
Details dug up by investigators paint a picture of a year-long con starting in April 2020, during which Bradford allegedly crafted bogus loan applications, fooling both the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) systems. As the Department of Justice reported, assuming it played out as the feds say, this plot echoes across the ledger sheets with a potential 20-year federal prison bid for each of the eight wire fraud counts. Also, Bradford may see a forfeiture order of over half a million dollars, the sum of his alleged cash grab.
Following the veritable wave of fraud triggered by the rollout of the CARES Act relief, the Attorney General established a COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force in May 2021. This task force knuckles down on pandemic-related fraud, pulling together the muscle of various government departments and agencies to prevent and pursue these criminal acts, as detailed by the Department of Justice.
The case against Bradford is a joint effort between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Small Business Administration's Office of Inspector General, with Assistant United States Attorney Merrilyn Hoenemeyer spearheading the prosecution.
