In a topic near and dear to our hearts, another COVID fraudster is finally answering for his crimes.
Seems like only yesterday that Jared Leonard was going to open a Budlong Chicken 'superstore' of sorts at 1329 W. Wilson (now home to Terrace).
Those plans evaporated when Leonard abandoned the Wilson project and moved to Colorado to open a Denver outpost of Budlong alongside a new concept (Au Feu).
Then COVID hit. Instead of working to survive and reset, Leonard decided to take full advantage of the COVID crisis by making up fake business losses and submitting false information to the government to obtain PPP loans.
Thankfully, sometimes justice prevails and crooks get caught and have to do hard time.
Via CWB Chicago, Leonard will be doing 30 months of federal jail time for his crimes.
Here's hoping the bell will toll for any and all local (alleged) fraudsters as well! (if guilty...)
uptown update is obsessed with angela clay
ReplyDelete100%
DeleteReally?
DeleteI thought the FBI and federal prosecutors were obsessed with Angela Clay.
Now I've been waiting 40 months for action regarding those loans. The Northern District of Illinois US Attorney's office has been a hot mess since the grand jury transcripts of the Broadview 6 case were revealed.
Since May they've indicted three government employees for Covid Fraud.
1. Chicago Police Sergeant.
2. Congressional Employee.
3. High ranking formers Chicago Schools official.
Each of the dollar amounts in those cases were well under 100k.
Now here's former City Inspector General Debra Witzburg mentioning that "politicianS" in the plural were under investigation.
https://wgnradio.com/lisa-dent/chicago-inspector-general-details-ppp-fraud-in-illinois/
My theory is federal prosecutors asked the City IG to hold off on the elected officials.
Stay tuned. My hope is the feds will move soon. I've been hoping that for 40 months.
"Uptown Update is obsessed with Angela Clay," say you? Well, SOMEONE oughta be.
DeleteI hope Angela Clay is next.
Delete$64 billion in fraud loss from the PPP loans during covid. i worked in banking fraud at the time and saw how wild west it was. im shocked they are still investigating and catching people this many years later.
ReplyDeleteUptown Update’s habit of editorializing continues to catch me off guard every time I click in to read an article.
ReplyDeleteYou manage to highlight a lot of important hyper local news that is otherwise easy to overlook, but then you shoot yourself in the foot by opining in ways that are on par with Fox News and MSNBC/MSNow, making it so much more difficult to generate meaningful discussion around the content.
Agreed.
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