A Brockton woman who worked as a medical technician for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was sentenced to probation this week after submitting applications that falsely claimed she owned a hairdressing business. Denise Baez, 52, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud.
According to court records cited by The Boston Globe, Baez was working as a VA medical technician in April 2021 when she submitted the first of two applications to the federal Paycheck Protection Program. She claimed to be the sole owner of a hairdressing business that grossed $100,000 in 2019, backing up the claim with phony tax records, the newspaper reported.
In reality, Baez had worked primarily as a phlebotomist since 2009, per the Globe's reporting.
How the Loans Were Forgiven
Baez ultimately received two loans totaling $41,666. The loans were later forgiven entirely after she submitted filings falsely claiming the money had gone toward payroll expenses, the Globe reported.
She was charged with fraud in April and pleaded guilty three months later, in July, to two counts of wire fraud.
Prosecutors Call It an Aberration
Baez was sentenced to one year of probation.
Her lawyer, Jennifer A. Sunderland, wrote that Baez was grieving, depressed, and experiencing significant instability when she submitted the fraudulent applications, according to the Globe's account. Baez's mother died from COVID-19 in April 2021, and her favorite aunt died from the pandemic six weeks later, the newspaper reported. The sentencing memorandum also noted that a friend of the father of Baez's youngest son influenced her decision to submit the applications, and that the father himself was separately charged with pandemic fraud, per the same account.
Baez accepted full responsibility for her wrongdoing, according to prosecutors' sentencing memorandum. She lost her VA job in June and has since struggled to make ends meet with part-time work, the Globe reported.
Part of a Wider Federal Crackdown
The case lands amid continued federal scrutiny of pandemic-era relief fraud nationwide. Separately, the U.S. Small Business Administration has estimated it disbursed over $200 billion in potentially fraudulent COVID-19 EIDL and PPP funds, representing at least 17 percent of all such disbursements.
Massachusetts has seen a string of similar prosecutions as part of what the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts describes as a nationwide enforcement surge involving the Justice Department's fraud division, the SBA, and the SBA's inspector general. In a separate case this year, a retired Massachusetts State Police sergeant was sentenced for fraudulently obtaining a PPP loan that was later forgiven, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
