A Florida man was charged with fraud on Monday after collecting almost $4 million in federal emergency loans to purchase a new Lamborghini Huracán sports car, authorities disclosed.
According to a statement issued by the U.S. Justice Department, David T. Hines of Miami, Florida, was charged for making false statements, bank fraud and engaging in illegal financial transactions for unlawfully using proceeds from the government's Paycheck Protection Program.
Federal agents seized the car, with a price tag of $318,000, and $3.4 million from Hines' bank accounts when he was arrested, the Justice Department disclosed.
Based on court documents, Hines applied for paycheck protection loans worth $13.5 million on behalf of different companies that included fake statements about worker payroll expenses.
PPP -- part of the U.S. government's $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act -- was implemented to provide emergency loans to small businesses suffering from the economic impact in the wake of the ongoing global health crisis.
Signed by U.S. President Donald Trump into law in March, the program stipulates that any funds given to a company on behalf of the PPP are supposed to be used for mortgage costs, worker salaries, rent and utilities.
The complaint states that those purported workers either "did not exist or earned a fraction of what Hines claimed in his PPP application," Darryl Coote of UPI quoted the complaint document. However, federal and bank records show little to no payroll expense in the first quarter this year, the report added.
Hines, the complaint documents added, claimed to have at least 70 workers, but prosecutors said he was earning an average monthly flow of around $200,000 and that he spent none of the PPP money he was granted for payroll.
Authorities said Hines also spent thousands of dollars on jewelry, clothes and even dating websites and stayed at expensive hotels in Miami Beach. Federal agents linked the Lamborghini to Hines after he figured in a hit-and-run on July 11, The Miami Herald reported. Miami police impounded the sports car, which federal prosecutors now plan to seize.
During the last few weeks, the state of Florida has emerged as among the hotspots for U.S. coronavirus infections and recently topped New York for registering the second-most confirmed COVID-19 cases in the nation, next to California.
Hines was apprehended on Friday. He was allowed to be released under $100,000 bond by U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge John O'Sullivan during his first court appearance on Monday. Hines will be allowed to stay at his mother's house with a GPS surveillance. He will be arraigned on Oct. 14.
