A Merrillville man was sentenced to 2.5 years Tuesday for embezzling $840,000 in COVID-19 relief funds.
Armon A. Hill, 46, pleaded guilty in June to wire fraud. He will also serve two years on supervised release after prison.
“This is a serious offense,” U.S. District Judge Gretchen Lund said.
Federal prosecutors alleged Hill set up Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury and Disaster Loan (EIDL) applications to receive $840,000 using a legitimate, but inactive, limited liability corporation – “Lakelees General Services.”
He claimed it was a “mail center” with multiple workers. He also submitted a fake IRS form on his PPP application claiming the business had paid wages and taxes in 2019.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Heater said in court that Hill partly used the money for extravagant purchases including trips to Dubai and Las Vegas, and shopping trips to Gucci, Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale’s.
Authorities allege Hill went beyond basic application fraud to make it look like the business was legitimate.
Hill contracted with ADP a month after he got PPP money in August 2020 to do its payroll and generate tax forms, court records state. He had the company pay $32,500 to six “employees” – who in reality were “himself, his son, a longtime girlfriend, a cousin and a childhood friend,” records state.
The friends and family kept a little of the money, but sent most of it back to Hill, documents show.
The government rejected his May 2022 application to have the $325,000 PPP loan forgiven.
Defense lawyer Jack Friedlander argued that his client has stayed out of trouble since his release from federal prison in 2009 in a drug case. He asked for probation, saying Hill was struggling to survive when the pandemic hit and he defrauded the government. Since then, he became an HVAC tech with steady work.
“It was easy,” Hill said in court about getting the loans. “I took advantage of it.”
Lawyers said Hill has repaid $56,000 in loans.
He will have to repay $883,000 total in restitution.
mcolias@post-trib.com
