Minnesota
As COVID spread, so did fraud. Minnesota saw a lot of it.
Champion and Hamilton double-charged the county and the business owners for their services, according to the government. They also recruited them to craft fraudulent applications to defraud the county’s pandemic program along with PPP and EIDL.
Businesses receiving services through Futuristic Management overstated income, expenses, taxes and lease records. In one case, Champion helped a boxing coach obtain a $100,000 loan by falsely claiming a business earned $405,000 in 2019. The coach made less than $1,000 and had no employees or expenses.
Champion and Hamilton await sentencing after each pleaded guilty to felony offenses last month.
Even now, prosecutors are still “trying to play catch-up” with the volume of fraud, Galdo said.
Jeffrey Meitrodt of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.