A former U.S. Agency for International Development employee from Waldorf, Maryland is headed to federal prison after admitting he faked paperwork to collect more than $176,000 in pandemic relief money meant for struggling small businesses. Simeon Bakare was sentenced to six months behind bars, with a judge also ordering him to forfeit $176,000 and pay an equal amount in restitution.
According to WBFF, prosecutors said Bakare was sentenced to six months in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining the Covid-19 relief funds, followed by three years of supervised release that includes two months of home detention. U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang handed down the sentence along with the forfeiture and restitution orders. The seed facts cited in that report describe Bakare as 56 years old, though a separate account from WMAR-2 News put his age at 55 and said he had previously worked at the agency on information and technology matters.
A Trail of Fabricated Business Records
Bakare pleaded guilty to wire fraud on June 3, per the WBFF report. Prosecutors said he used fabricated documents, including false IRS Schedule C forms, and falsely attested that sole proprietorships existed in order to qualify for the loans. Court documents further indicated that the businesses listed on his applications had no significant employees, office space, revenue, or business operations.
WMAR-2 News reported that from April 2020 through November 2021, Bakare made at least five Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications. That station's report also said he admitted using the loan money for personal expenses, including a car and his housing payments. Prosecutors separately said he submitted five false loan applications and later sought loan forgiveness on the funds.
Facing Up to 20 Years at Time of Plea
When Bakare entered his guilty plea, the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland said he faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for wire fraud. That figure represented the statutory ceiling he faced at the time of the plea announcement, not the sentence ultimately imposed by Judge Chuang.
The Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program were both tied to the CARES Act, which created the PPP and expanded access to EIDL funds to help businesses affected by the pandemic. Those programs sent billions of dollars out quickly to keep small businesses afloat, a scale that also made them a target for fraud nationwide.
Federal Watchdog Reviewed Pandemic Loan Fraud Cases
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has been examining how the Small Business Administration handled fraud risks in its pandemic loan programs. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the agency analyzed SBA data on the timing and amount of PPP and Covid-19 EIDL loans disbursed during the pandemic compared with when procedural safeguards were implemented, and it used DOJ press releases and court records to select and review 10 cases that had been adjudicated as PPP or Covid-19 EIDL fraud. The available excerpt from that review does not identify the specific cases or establish how Bakare's case compares to others nationally.
