A former D.C. Homeland Security commissioner, Wendy Nicole Villatoro, has pled guilty to orchestrating a scheme to fraudulently obtain approximately $844,000 in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) funds. Villatoro, 40, who currently works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, admitted to one count of bank fraud in a plea agreement filed Thursday in a District of Columbia federal court.
Homeland $844K PPP Scam : Details of the Fraudulent Scheme
Prosecutors allege that Villatoro submitted a total of eight PPP loan applications to various financial institutions, along with 15 EIDL applications to the Small Business Administration (SBA). According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), each of these applications contained “materially false statements.” Villatoro reportedly fabricated details about fake businesses, inflating the number of employees, average monthly payroll, annual revenue, and costs of goods sold to secure the pandemic relief funds.
