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Louisiana Woman Sentenced to Prison for False Statements in Connection with CARES Act Assistance and Wire Fraud

Louisiana – On October 3, 2022, United States Attorney Ronald C. Gathe, Jr. announced that U.S. Chief Judge Shelly D. Dick sentenced Chanda Hall, age 44, of Baker, Louisiana, to 26 months in federal prison following her convictions for wire fraud and making false statements. Upon release from imprisonment, Hall will serve two years of supervised release. The Court further sentenced Hall to pay a $5,000 fine, $25,000 in restitution to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and a $25,000 money judgment to the United States.

According to the evidence given at trial, the SBA is a United States government agency that assists entrepreneurs and small companies. The CARES Act is a federal statute that was adopted in or around March 2020 to provide emergency financial help to millions of Americans who were suffering the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The CARES Act increased the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, which provides loans to small companies and other qualified entities, among other things.

Hall submitted her first EIDL application in May 2020. Although she submitted the application in the name of a company she created in 2010, the firm’s registration with the Louisiana Secretary of State had been canceled in 2015, and the company had not been reactivated at the time Hall submitted this application, and it had no bank account. The SBA declined the application on June 16, 2020.

The following day, on June 17, 2020, Hall submitted another application under the guise of an ostensibly non-profit organization, First Home Foundation (“First Home”), which she had founded earlier that year. Hall signed the application, certifying that the information provided was accurate. In the application, Hall indicated, among other things, that: (a) First Home was founded in 2017; (b) First Home had five workers as of January 31, 2020; (c) First Home’s gross revenues in 2019 were $60,000; and (d) First Home’s cost of products sold for the same twelve-month period was $30,000. When asked if she had been convicted or pled guilty to a felony in the previous five years, Hall said no.

All of the foregoing statements were incorrect, as Hall knew at the time. First Home did not have the revenues or expenses that Hall described in her application, as the United States demonstrated at trial, and Hall falsified her criminal background, which included a recent felony conviction. Furthermore, as the US demonstrated at trial, Hall was offered numerous chances to withdraw her application or explain that she had misunderstood the application process, and she continually submitted false information and lied to those responsible for investigating her application.

Hall was convicted during a trial in June 2022, and the Court particularly concluded that she had obstructed justice in the investigation and prosecution of the matter, including by giving false testimony at the trial.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Small Business Administration-Office of Inspector General investigated the case, which was prosecuted by Assistant US Attorneys Alan A. Stevens, who also serves as Senior Litigation Counsel and Caroline B. Gardner.

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