Charlotte businesswoman sentenced to serve time for $1.5 million COVID fraud scheme
A 50-year-old Charlotte woman was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for fraudulently obtaining $1.5 million in COVID relief funds from the federal government, authorities said.
Jeannetta Blackmon, also known as Jeannetta Regan, conspired with others who received $1.2 million through an application scheme, the feds alleged. She received $319,000 for businesses she operated. And she got another $300,000 in fees from people who paid her to commit fraud, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in North Carolina’s Western District.
Blackmon received the money through the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Relief Disaster Loan, according to the Monday news release.
“Blackmon defrauded loan programs put in place to support businesses fighting to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Lawrence Cameron, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, said in a statement. “Her scheme was not a lapse in judgment, but a pervasive and deceitful course of conduct.”
From April 2020 to November 2021, Blackmon ran the scheme through her businesses — J Renee Enterprises, Jeannetta Renee Girls Talk, and Jrenee Investments, according to court records. To get money, she submitted applications and documents with fake information about income, employee totals, gross revenues and expenses. She also made and sent fabricated bank statements and checks for the scheme.
“Not only did Blackmon prepare fraudulent loan applications for herself, she also charged others to fake their applications as well,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert M. DeWitt said in a statement.
To avoid getting caught, she asked her customers to pay her in checks or through peer-to-peer payments. Some examples of common peer-to-peer systems are CashApp, PayPal and Venmo.
Blackmon used money from the fraud to buy a five-bedroom, five-bathroom house on Barrands Lane for $485,000, according to court records.
Blackmon pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in July 2023. She has remained free on bond and will be ordered to report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility.
Her prison sentence will be followed by two years of supervised release. She was also ordered to pay over $1.5 million in restitution.
COVID fraud in the Charlotte region
Government agents have investigated many cases in the Charlotte area.
In the Western District of North Carolina, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Charlotte has charged more than 30 people in COVID fraud cases, with more than 20 sentenced to prison for as long as a decade, The Charlotte Observer reported in January.
As of December, there were about 10 cases still pending trial. The total amount alleged to have been stolen by people charged in the Western District is more than $15 million, according to the office.
In February, Taiji Group USA, Inc., a paper converter company in Conover, agreed to pay more than $460,000 for providing false information to get COVID money.
Steven Andiloro, of Mooresville, pleaded guilty in November to organizing a multimillon-dollar investment scheme and fraudulently receiving more than $2.6 million through businesses that were both real and fake. He told victims that their money would be invested into his car service business and a non-existent marijuana dispensary.
During the summer, Antoine Johnson and Kimberly Maddox, formerly of Huntersville, pleaded guilty to fraudulently using their moving business to receive $2 million in bank loans and COVID relief funds from the federal government.
