NC con man pocketed $400,000 by selling COVID-19 supplies he didn’t have, feds say
A 34-year-old man in North Carolina concocted multiple scams to rip off unwitting consumers and small business owners during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
He copped to three of those schemes before a federal judge Monday.
Greensboro resident Brandon Lewis pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and one count of lying to the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of North Carolina said in a news release.
“Brandon Lewis today admitted to a wide range of brazen schemes specifically designed to profit illegally from the COVID-19 pandemic by defrauding scores of frightened consumers and small business owners desperate for a financial lifeline,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt said in the release.
Lewis’s scams date back to mid-March — before Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Securities Act — when prosecutors said he created the website www.kitchengoods.com.
The website no longer exists, but Lewis took 8,500 orders for toilet paper, hand sanitizer and other COVID-19 supplies before it was taken down. He made $400,000 over a five-day period between March 20 and March 24, according to court filings.
Lewis never had any of the goods he claimed to be in stock, and customers never received the items they paid for, prosecutors said.
His schemes grew in magnitude as the pandemic continued.
In April, prosecutors said in court filings that Lewis started the “COVID-19 Relief Fund,” which he reportedly advertised as the “largest corporate funded COVID-19 relief fund to date.”
The fund — operated by a nonexistent “investment firm” Lewis purportedly ran — offered small business owners a “guaranteed” grant valued at $15,000 if they sent a $1,200 reservation fee, according to court filings.
He later advertised the same grants worth $12,500 in exchange for a $995 fee, prosecutors said.
From April 15 to April 27, Lewis netted more than $100,000 in fees from small business owners who believed they were receiving a COVID-19 relief grant, according to court filings.
Lewis also reportedly offered $5,000 grants “to every American affected by COVID-19” through what he dubbed the “American Relief Fund.” But prosecutors said “Lewis never had or distributed any funds — charitable or otherwise — through the two funds.”
In the interim, Lewis was purchasing companies that were incorporated but never conducted any business, according to court filings.
He bought 37 corporations in all, prosecutors said in court filings, and from April 1 to July 19 he submitted 68 applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans through the Small Business Administration.
“Lewis received approximately $35,000 from the SBA before additional fund disbursements were blocked by federal law enforcement,” court filings state.
He’s due to be sentenced Nov. 30, according to the Justice Department’s news release.
