While awaiting trial in a separate federal case for allegedly ordering welders to illegally repair an oil tanker that resulted in a fatal explosion in 2014, the owner of two California trucking companies is facing wire fraud charges. Prosecutors claim he obtained more than $667,000 in funds through the US Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program while awaiting trial in a separate federal case for allegedly ordering welders to illegally repair an oil tanker that resulted in a
Carl Bradley Johansson, 62, of Newport Beach, was charged on Thursday in the United States District Court for the Central District of California with one count of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy to conduct bank fraud.
Johansson allegedly filed for and obtained a $436,390 PPP loan in his son’s name in April 2020 to keep his company, Western Distribution LLC of Ontario, California, afloat during the COVID-19 epidemic, according to federal prosecutors.
According to court filings, instead of using the monies for payroll expenses, Johansson laid off the majority of his staff and spent the majority of the money elsewhere.
Prosecutors said he asked for and secured another PPP loan for more than $286,500 in the same month, this time in his 85-year-old mother’s name, for a trucking firm in Merced County, California, known as “Company A,” according to the affidavit.
Prosecutors allege that Johansson moved 21 of his Merced County trucking company’s employees onto the Western Distribution payroll to give the impression that Western Distribution had spent more of its PPP loan on payroll than it actually did, even though those employees never worked for his other trucking company.
According to the affidavit, Johansson took the maneuver just before the company’s 24-week window for spending PPP funds expired, in order to falsely claim on Western Distribution’s PPP loan forgiveness application in January 2021 that he spent at least 60% of the PPP loan on salaries.
Johansson could face a sentence of up to 70 years in jail.
The PPP, which is overseen by the Small Business Administration, began with $350 billion in the CARES Act, which was signed by former President Donald Trump in late March 2020, and was reupped with an additional $320 billion in April 2020. In January, lenders were eligible to apply for the third wave of funding, which included $284 billion in forgiving PPP loans through the SBA.
Another federal inquiry into Johansson’s alleged attempt to circumvent federal transportation restrictions by ordering the unlawful repair of an oil tanker that resulted in a catastrophic explosion in 2014 that killed one man and badly injured another welder is set to begin on Sept. 14.
According to court filings, he is also suspected of using shell businesses to avoid paying at least $298,562 in federal income taxes from 2012 to 2017.
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Clarissa Hawes’ FreightWaves articles can be found here.
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