Date: October 5, 2023 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov U.S. Attorney Trini E. Ross announced today that Michael Rech, of North Chili, NY, who was convicted at trial of 37 counts of bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, was sentenced to serve 57 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Meghan K. McGuire and Sean C. Eldridge, who handled the prosecution of the case, stated that Rech was the Director, President, and CEO of Guardian of Humanity, Inc., a nonprofit corporation, as well as the sole member of Eclipse, a limited liability company. Rech applied for eight different Payroll Protection Program loans, fraudulently claiming that Guardian and Eclipse had employees and that he had been paying wages to these employees, which qualified him for the PPP loans. In total, he attempted to obtain over $880,000 in PPP funds. Subsequent investigation revealed that Rech's companies did not have any employees and did not pay wages to anyone. Rech himself was unemployed and collecting unemployment benefits from the State of New York at the time. Rech received three PPP loans totaling approximately $277,500. Once he received the loans, Rech took the money out of the bank in amounts less than $10,000 to avoid federal reporting requirements. The Internal Revenue Service recovered all of the funds from two safes in Rech's home and a bank account that Rech had sole control over. As a result of the trial, all $277,500 was forfeited back to the government. The sentencing is the result of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, under the direction of Thomas Fattorusso, Special Agent-in-Charge, New York Field Office, Homeland Security Investigations, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Matthew Scarpino, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, under the direction of Sheriff Todd Baxter, and the Small Business Administration.
