Do you think we’ll ever know the total numbers of dollars stolen from U.S. taxpayers by COVID-19 relief fraud? There’s no way to get an accurate number. For that to happen, the U.S. Government would have to tell us what the fraud numbers are. Oh, they’ll continue to give us numbers. But how accurate are they? And how much additional fraud remains unaccounted for?
We, from time to time, will read carefully selected stories of those getting caught cheating the system using COVID-19 funds as their targets. Of course, conservatives — and especially conservative religious leaders — who cheated the system and who are exposed will continue to be fodder for the Left. Such a case just raised its ugly head in Florida.
Uh-Oh! Florida Pastor Busted
A Florida pastor and his son were arrested Wednesday on charges of fraudulently obtaining more than $8 million in federal Covid relief funds and attempting to use some of the money to buy a luxury home near Walt Disney World.
Evan Edwards, 64, and his son, Josh, 30, were taken into custody five months after an NBC News report raised questions over why they hadn’t been charged in the alleged scam, which federal prosecutors first identified in court papers in December 2020.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the family had hired an attorney.
A source familiar with the investigation said NBC News’ previous reporting led law enforcement to prioritize the case.
The case dates to April 2020, when Josh Edwards applied for a $6 million Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan to cover payroll, rent and utilities for his family’s ministry. In the loan application, he claimed that the organization, ASLAN International Ministry, had 486 employees and a monthly payroll of $2.7 million, according to a federal forfeiture complaint.
ASLAN International was ultimately approved for an $8.4 million loan.
But when federal investigators showed up at the ministry’s office in Orlando, the door was locked and workers at the neighboring businesses told them nobody was ever seen inside, the complaint says. A review of the ministry’s website found that the donation links were inactive and sections of text were apparently lifted from other religious sites, according to the complaint.
There were other red flags. The man who was listed on the loan application as the ministry’s accountant suffered from dementia and hadn’t done any work for the organization since 2017, federal prosecutors said in court papers, citing an interview with the man’s son.
Federal agents descended on the family’s home in New Smyrna Beach about 7 a.m. Wednesday.
Evan Edwards was wheeled out of the house in a wheelchair. Agents escorted Josh Edwards out of the home and into a law enforcement vehicle, his hands cuffed behind his back.
A six-count indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses them of making a series of false claims in their PPP loan application, including that ASLAN International had 486 employees and average monthly payroll expenses of $2.7 million.
Evan and Josh Edwards knew that ASLAN’s actual number of employees and actual monthly payroll expenses were “significantly lower, or entirely nonexistent,” says the indictment prosecutors filed in the Middle District of Florida.
The two men, who are originally from Canada, were hit with a total of six charges, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and visa fraud. They were expected to appear in federal court in Orlando on Wednesday afternoon.
“I’m glad they got arrested,” said a neighbor, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case. “It’s a long time coming.”
The Edwards family did missionary work in Turkey for many years before moving to Florida in 2019. They settled in a newly built community about an hour’s drive from Orlando. In September 2020, federal agents showed up at the home to execute a search warrant but no one was there and the place had been “cleared out,” according to the civil forfeiture complaint.
Florida police officers pulled over the family’s Mercedes SUV later that evening. They were speeding on I-75 north of Gainesville, according to a police report.
Federal agents arrived on the scene and found bags of shredded documents in the vehicle, as well as suitcases full of financial records and their electronic devices stuffed into so-called Faraday bags, which block radio frequencies to keep them from being tracked, according to the civil forfeiture complaint.
The family was taken into custody on an unrelated immigration charge but released the next day when the case was dismissed, according to court records.
Six months later, in April 2021, a federal judge in Florida ordered the forfeiture of the $8.4 million the Edwards family had received after the government claimed that it was the proceeds from bank fraud and money laundering offenses. The Edwards family did not challenge the seizure.
They had tried to use a portion of the money to purchase a $3.7 million home in a new Disney World development called Golden Oaks, according to the complaint.
But the deal never went through. The authorities seized the $868,000 that was set aside for the down payment on the 4,700-square-foot home, the complaint says.
Fraud Perpetrated By Our Own Government!
As rail contract negotiations entered a period of crisis in September, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg phoned in from over 3,500 miles away during a vacation in Porto, Portugal, a posh tourist destination best known for its wine production, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
Buttigieg quietly jetted off to Portugal on Aug. 29, a week before Amtrak began canceling all long-distance trips in preparation of a potentially catastrophic rail strike. The Labor Day weekend travel was a “long-planned personal trip,” a Department of Transportation spokeswoman told the Free Beacon, and Buttigieg “remained available and engaged” from Europe.
Hot attractions in Porto include the 18th century Clérigos Tower and the Sé do Porto cathedral. For those who wish to enjoy all the libations Portugal offers, tourists can also spend a day in Porto’s sister city Gaia and peruse its celebrated wine cellars.
“As usual, while traveling on personal time he remained available and engaged on urgent issues, which in this case meant multiple calls with staff and stakeholders to work on the topic of rail labor negotiations,” the spokeswoman said. Buttigieg returned to the States on Sept. 5, as rail worker unions began prepping for a strikethat would have had catastrophic economic consequences.
News of Buttigieg taking a vacation at a time of high-stakes negotiations in the transportation industry comes as he faces anger from rail worker unions over the results of those contract negotiations. Unions’ chief demand of paid sick leave was absent from the final contract, which was not reached through an agreement but rather forced through by federal law earlier this month. Though President Joe Biden tapped Buttigieg as one of the administration’s leaders for negotiations, the ambitious politician appeared more concerned with campaigning and fundraising for Democratic candidates in the lead-up to the midterm elections than with securing benefits for the unions.
Now it appears that attending his vacation in Europe was also higher on his priority list.
The trip gives fuel to critics who say the administration has abandoned blue-collar workers who helped put Biden in office. Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), who voted against the rail contract and has urged his party to capitalize on the administration’s failed negotiations, said Buttigieg’s decision to fly to Portugal was “a joke.”
“Pete Buttigieg will take paid vacation in Europe for days on end but doesn’t think rail workers should get more than one day of sick leave,” Hawley said.
“This is the same guy who took months of paid leave at the height of the supply chain crisis,” he continued, referencing the paternity leave that Buttigieg took after he and his husband adopted children. “If rail workers showed up for work as rarely as Buttigieg does, the country would fall apart.”
Three days after Buttigieg returned from Portugal, the Association of American Railroads released a report concluding that a rail strike would cost the U.S. economy more than $2 billion a day.
“Overall, the secretary’s work toward helping successfully prevent a rail shutdown included dozens of calls and meetings between April and December,” Buttigieg’s spokeswoman said.
The White House and Buttigieg’s inability to secure paid sick leave for rail workers drew anger from unions across the country. That rail contract not only alienated a critical Democratic constituency as Buttigieg likely plans a bid for higher office, it also provided Republicans with a messaging opportunity.
The reason for Buttigieg’s vacation is unclear, although it appears the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., didn’t want the public to know about it. Neither Buttigieg, his husband, nor the Department of Transportation made any public announcement or reference to the trip. In fact, Buttigieg maintained a social media presence during his time in Portugal and made it seem like he was traveling in the United States. On Sept. 1, in the middle of his vacation, he posted a “selfie” video of himself speaking from a U.S. airport about a new Department of Transportation airline consumer complaint tool. “If you’re traveling this weekend or anytime, know that our department has your back,” Buttigieg says in the video.
How Buttigieg traveled to Portugal is a mystery. Since assuming his Transportation post, Buttigieg has taken 18 fights on private jets.
Summary
Fraud of the American people is perpetrated in a number of ways. Actually stealing money is probably way down the list of “Types of Federal fraud.” It seems to many taxpayers that serving in lofty positions of power over people is the perfect door to easily open to fraud. In the above two cases, even a Secretary of Transportation as well as a Florida pastor were caught in purposeful fraud — albeit two different versions of fraud.
Here’s the sad truth we must all reconcile as an eternal reality: where there’s monetary value that’s attractive to people, there will be fraud!
