PPP Fraud Arrests 2025

PPP Fraud Arrests 2025: When Your Preparer Becomes the Government’s Best Witness

Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to give you the real picture of what’s happening with PPP fraud prosecutions in 2025 – not the sanitized version you find elsewhere. If you’re reading news stories about PPP fraud arrests and wondering whether you should be worried, you need to understand something that most articles won’t tell you: the people getting arrested right now aren’t random. There’s a pattern.

The government spent 2021-2024 taking down the infrastructure. The fintechs. The preparers. The scheme organizers. Blueacorn. Womply. Dozens of smaller operations. That phase is largely complete. Now they’re using those records to find everyone who used those services. The facilitator who processed your application? Their client list is now federal evidence. Their cooperation agreement means they’re naming names.

Todd Spodek and the team at Spodek Law Group have represented clients who learned about their PPP exposure years after using a service they thought was legitimate. The investigation didn’t start with them. It started with someone else – a preparer, a fintech, a scheme organizer. Then it worked its way to them. That’s the 2025 pattern. And if you’re reading headlines about arrests and wondering if you’re next, this article will explain exactly how the government is building cases and who they’re targeting.

The Headlines That Weren’t Random

Lets start with whats actually happening in 2025. Because the headlines make it look like the government is randomly picking off PPP fraudsters. They’re not.

Stephanie Hockridge was a former news anchor at ABC15. She co-founded Blueacorn, which processed $12 billion in PPP loan applications. In early 2025, she was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison plus $63 million in restitution. But heres the thing about Blueacorn that nobody wants to discuss – a Congressional investigation found that ONE PERSON was reviewing 1.7 million loan applications. One person. This wasnt a company carefully vetting legitimate businesses. This was a fraud factory designed to rubber-stamp as many applications as possible.

Carl Torjagbo of Marietta, Georgia faces up to 170 years in prison for $9.6 million in PPP fraud combined with tax fraud. Thats not a typo. One hundred seventy years maximum exposure. He wasnt some mastermind – he was a tax preparer who saw an oportunity and took it. Now hes looking at spending the rest of his life in prison.

In February 2025, 21 people were indicted in Mitchell County, Georgia for PPP fraud. Twenty-one people. In one county. This is what network prosecution looks like. The government dosent pick off individuals – they take down entire schemes. And once they identify a scheme, everyone connected to it becomes a target.

Heres what you need to understand about these headlines: they arnt random enforcement actions. They’re the result of years of investigation, record collection, and cooperation from facilitators who got caught earlier. The 2025 arrests are Phase 2 of the prosecution strategy.

51 Months, 10 Years, 170 Years: The 2025 Sentencing Reality

OK so lets talk about what people are actualy getting. Becuase most articles throw around “up to 20 years” and “up to 30 years” without explaining what sentences look like in real cases.

Renetta Golden-Larimore got 51 months for submitting 43 fraudulent PPP applications. Thats over four years in federal prison. She charged clients fees of up to $7,000 to prepare applications. She kept the fees. Now shes serving time in a federal facility. Her clients – the 43 people who paid those fees – are now targets themselves.

A Nevada man got 15 years plus $11.7 million in restitution for an $11 million PPP fraud scheme. Fifteen years. Not months. Years. Hes going to spend the next decade and a half in a federal prison, and when he gets out, the restitution judgment will still be waiting.

An Illinois tax preparer got 42 months. Another preparer in Missouri got 36 months. A California businessman got 51 months. An Ohio scheme organizer got 78 months. These aren’t outliers – they represent the pattern. Federal judges are handing down real prison time, and the sentences keep getting longer as prosecutors get better at proving the scope of fraud.

Heres what the sentancing math looks like in practice. The federal guidelines calculate offense level based on the amount of loss. At $1 million in fraud, you’re looking at approximately 51-63 months. At $5 million, the range jumps to 78-97 months. At $10 million, you’re exceeding 100 months. And these are just guidelines – judges can go higher, especialy for organizers or repeat offenders. They can also add enhancements for abuse of trust, sophisticated means, and obstruction. Each enhancement pushes the sentance higher.

The people who think “I only got $20,000, they won’t bother with me” need to understand something. The Jackson family case in Dallas involved seven family members who each got around $20,000. Twenty thousand dollars each. All seven face up to five years in federal prison. There’s no amount too small when you’re part of a network. The goverment dosent care about the dollar amount as much as they care about the pattern. When they identify coordinated fraud, everyone in the coordination becomes a defendant. The dollar amount might affect sentancing, but it won’t prevent prosecution.

How Blueacorn’s $12 Billion Became 1.7 Million Names

This is were it gets terrifying for anyone who used a fintech or preparer service. Becuase when those companies go down, they don’t go down quietly. They take everyone with them.

Blueacorn processed aproximately $12 billion in PPP loan applications. Think about that number. Twelve billion dollars. Thats not a small operation – thats a massive percentage of the entire PPP program flowing through one company. Blueacorn wasnt just processing legitimate applications from legitimate businesses. It was a volume operation designed to push through as many applications as possible, collect fees, and move on.

A Congressional investigation found that Blueacorn had ONE person reviewing 1.7 million applications. One person. Obviously they weren’t doing real due diligence. They were rubber-stamping applications as fast as possible becuase they got paid for volume. That single reviewer couldn’t possibly have verified payroll documents, checked business legitimacy, or confirmed employee counts. They were clicking “approved” and collecting fees.

The founders weren’t just negligent – they were actively participating in the fraud. Stephanie Hockridge and her co-founders offered a premium “VIPPP” service that coached applicants on how to inflate numbers. They recruited referral agents to find more customers. They charged kickbacks based on loan amounts. The whole operation was designed to maximize fraud, not prevent it.

Now heres the cascade that should keep you awake at night. Blueacorn kept records of every application. Every clients name. Every document submitted. Every email exchanged. Every fee collected. When the founders got convicted, those records became federal evidence. The goverment now has a database of 1.7 million applications to mine. Even if only 10% of those were fraudulent, thats 170,000 potential defendants. Even if only 1% are prosecutable, thats 17,000 cases. Even if they only pursue 1% of those, thats still 170 federal prosecutions waiting to happen.

And it’s not just Blueacorn. Womply processed billions more. Kabbage processed billions. Smaller preparers across the country handled thousands each. Every one of those companies kept records. Every one of those records is now potentialy in federal hands. The goverment is systematicaly working through these databases, cross-referencing them with IRS records, bank records, and SBA data to identify discrepencies.

If you used any kind of PPP application service – a fintech, a preparer, even a family friend who “knew how to do it” – your name is in somebodys file somewhere. And if that somebody is now cooperating with prosecutors, your name is in a federal file waiting to be opened.

When Your Preparer Cooperates

This is the section that should change how you think about 2025 arrests. Becuase the pattern isnt “government catches fraudster.” The pattern is “government catches facilitator, facilitator cooperates, government uses cooperation to find clients.”

Think about how federal cooperation works. A preparer gets arrested. They face 10 years, maybe 15. Prosecutors offer a deal: cooperate, name names, testify against your clients, and we’ll recommend a reduced sentance. The preparer has two choices – decades in prison or cooperation. Most cooperate.

When they cooperate, they dont just hand over a list of names. They provide testimony about what happend with each client. They explain which clients knew the application was false. They describe conversations were clients discussed inflating payroll numbers or fabricating employees. They turn the goverments circumstantial case into a testimonial case.

You might be thinking: “But I didnt know the application was false. My preparer handled everything.” Heres the problem with that defense. The preparer is going to testify that you knew. They’re cooperating to save themselves, not to protect you. And “I didnt know” becomes very hard to prove when the person who prepared your application is on the stand describing what you discussed.

Federal prosecutors love preparer testimony becuase it solves their biggest problem – proving intent. Fraud requires knowing falsity. The goverment has to prove you knew the application contained false information. Without that, they cant convict. But when the preparer testifies that you sat across a desk and discussed how to inflate your payroll numbers, or that you emailed fake tax documents, or that you explicitly asked how to make the loan bigger – intent is established. Your defense becomes much harder.

At Spodek Law Group, weve seen this pattern unfold repeatedly. A client comes to us after learning that the preparer was arrested. They insist they didnt know the application was fraudulent. But the preparer is already cooperating. The preparer has already described conversations. The preparer has already provided documents and emails. The client isnt fighting the goverment anymore – they’re fighting the preparer’s sworn testimony. And in that fight, the preparer has every incentive to make the client look guilty, becuase the more value the preparer provides, the better deal they get.

The 43 Clients Who Became Targets

Let me make this concrete. Renetta Golden-Larimore of Missouri submitted 43 fraudulent PPP applications on behalf of clients. She got 51 months. But heres what happened to those 43 clients.

When Golden-Larimore got arrested, her records were seized. Names. Applications. Payment records showing who paid her fees. Communication records showing what was discussed. Email threads. Text messages. Notes from client meetings. Forty-three people who thought they’d gotten PPP loans and moved on with their lives suddenly became federal targets. They didn’t know an investigation was coming. They hadnt heard anything from the FBI. But they were already in a file, waiting to be opened.

The investigation into Golden-Larimore didn’t happen becuase of one anonymous tip. It happened becuase the SBA flagged patterns in her applications. Multiple businesses with identical payroll numbers. Addresses that didn’t match business registrations. Tax documents that didn’t align with IRS records. When investigators pulled the thread, the whole scheme unraveled completely. And everyone connected to that thread became part of the investigation.

In Atlanta, a scheme organizer was arrested. When they cooperated, 11 business owners – the organizer’s clients – all pled guilty. Eleven people. Not one or two – eleven. The organizer’s cooperation gave prosecutors everything they needed. Testimony about conversations. Copies of documents. Proof of payments. The clients had no idea any of this was coming untill prosecutors showed up with evidence the clients thought was secret.

This is the pattern. Facilitator arrested. Records seized. Clients identified. Subpoenas issued. Clients interviewed. Clients charged. Clients convicted. The chain moves from the organizer to everyone the organizer touched. And the chain can take years to reach you – but it will reach you.

And heres the part that makes this especialy dangerous in 2025. The statute of limitations for bank fraud is 10 years. PPP applications were submitted in 2020 and 2021. That means prosecutors have untill 2030 or 2031 to charge people. They’re not in a hurry. They’re systematicaly working through the facilitator client lists, one by one, building cases methodicaly. If your preparer hasnt been arrested yet, that dosent mean you’re safe. It means they havnt gotten to your preparer yet. But they will. The pipeline is full and the cases keep coming.

Who’s Next: The 2025 Profile

If your reading this and wondering weather you should be worried, let me describe the profile of whos getting charged in 2025.

The obvious fraudsters are still being prosecuted – people who submitted multiple applications, fabricated entire businesses, or stole millions. Thats the headline cases. But they’re not the majority of 2025 prosecutions.

Preparers and facilitators are the primary targets right now. The goverment is still dismantling infrastructure. If you helped others apply for PPP loans and charged fees, you should be extremely concerned. The preparer cases are coming fast, and every preparer who gets convicted creates dozens of new potential defendants from their client list.

Clients of prosecuted preparers are the next wave. This is were most readers should focus. If your preparer has been arrested, you’re in the pipeline. If the preparer used a fintech thats been investigated, you’re in the pipeline. If the preparer’s name has appeared in any news story about PPP fraud, you’re in the pipeline. The only question is when they get to your file, not whether they will.

Network participants face exposure when any part of the network flips. The Jackson family case shows this clearly – seven family members, all charged. If you were part of any group that coordinated applications, anyone in that group cooperating creates exposure for everyone else. Family networks are especialy vulnerable becuase family members know details about eachothers applications.

Small-dollar recipients aren’t immune. The Mitchell County indictments show the goverment will charge small amounts when they’re part of a pattern. Twenty thousand dollars is enough for federal prosecution when its part of a scheme. The goverment cares about the pattern, not the size of individual frauds.

Heres the question you need to ask yourself. Did you use any kind of help to get your PPP loan? A preparer? A fintech? A friend who knew the process? Did that helper charge you a fee? Did they seem to know tricks to get a higher loan amount? Did they handle everything and just have you sign?

If the answer to any of those is yes, you need to understand that you’re not watching the news about PPP fraud. You’re potentialy in the news about PPP fraud – you just dont know it yet.

The federal PPP fraud enforcement operation isnt slowing down. The COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force has charged over 3,500 defendants and seized over $1.4 billion. They’re using sophisticated data analysis to match applications to bank records to tax records. They’re using cooperation from facilitators to identify clients. They’re using the records that fintechs kept to find everyone who touched the fraud. The technology makes this possible at scale. They can cross-reference millions of applications against IRS filings, identify discrepencies automaticaly, and generate target lists for investigation.

The SBA Office of Inspector General has referred tens of thousands of potentially fraudulent loans for investigation. The FBI has dedicated task forces in every major city. The IRS Criminal Investigation division is working alongside DOJ prosecutors. This isnt a temporary enforcement push – its a permanent operation that will continue for years. The infrastructure is built. The databases are populated. The cooperation agreements are signed. The only thing left is to work through the cases.

If you have any reason to beleive your PPP application might attract scrutiny – becuase of who helped you, becuase of what was in the application, becuase you’re hearing about investigations near you – dont wait untill your name is on a subpoena. Spodek Law Group has handled cases were clients got ahead of the investigation and resolved exposure before charges were filed. Thats the best outcome. Sometimes it means paying back the loan with penalties. Sometimes it means negotiating a non-prosecution agreement. Sometimes it means positioning for the best possible plea. But in every case, early involvement gives you options that disappear once the indictment is filed.

The worst outcome is being the last person in a network to realize everyone else has already cooperated. By then, prosecutors have heard the same story from five different witnesses. Your version of events is worthless. Your information has no value. And your leverage – the thing that could of gotten you a better deal – has evaporated.

Todd Spodek has seen this pattern destroy people who waited too long. Dont be one of them.

Call Spodek Law Group at 212-300-5196. The consultation is free and completely confidential. The mistake of waiting isnt something you can take back once the indictment comes.