Date: September 15, 2022 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Acting United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that Bion A. Flint, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced today by Chief United States District Judge Robert F. Rossiter, Jr. to 10 months' imprisonment for conspiracy to commit wire fraud. After his release from prison, Flint will begin a three-year term of supervised release. Flint was also ordered to pay restitution of $45,833. During 2020 and 2021, Flint submitted or caused to be submitted applications for Paycheck Protection Program ("PPP") and Economic Injury Disaster Loan ("EIDL") program loans. Those loan programs were created or expanded by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security ("CARES") Act, which was designed to provide emergency financial assistance to the millions of Americans suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Flint worked with others to prepare and submit loan applications that misrepresented his income as a sole proprietor. The PPP applications were supported by false tax documents. He and a co-conspirator submitted fraudulent applications for loans totaling approximately $82,563, and he obtained $40,833. On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the Department's response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus. Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice's National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form. This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
