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Sunday, February 16, 2025

Trinidadian national jailed for using stolen identity during COVID-19 relief prosecution

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650 days ago
20230507

The Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Jus­tice (DOJ) says a Trinida­di­an na­tion­al re­sid­ing in Mi­a­mi has been sen­tenced to an ad­di­tion­al year and nine months in prison for us­ing a stolen iden­ti­ty dur­ing her ear­li­er pros­e­cu­tion for her role in the sub­mis­sion of fraud­u­lent loan ap­pli­ca­tions seek­ing more than US$9.2 mil­lion in for­giv­able Pay­check Pro­tec­tion Pro­gram (PPP) loans.

The DOJ said the loans are guar­an­teed by the US Small Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der the Coro­n­avirus Aid, Re­lief and Eco­nom­ic Se­cu­ri­ty (CARES) Act.

Ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments, Tani­ka Can­dy Hospedales, 44, of Trinidad and To­ba­go, ap­plied for and re­ceived a PPP loan in May 2020 on be­half of her com­pa­ny us­ing the name and per­son­al iden­ti­fy­ing in­for­ma­tion of an­oth­er per­son, Keyaira Bostic, with­out au­tho­riza­tion.

The DOJ said Hospedales “sought a fraud­u­lent PPP loan of US$84,515 on be­half of her com­pa­ny, I Am Liq­uid Inc., and re­ferred oth­er con­spir­a­tors to the scheme who sought US$3,345,895 in fraud­u­lent loans for a to­tal in­tend­ed loss of US$3,430,410.

Dur­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her in­volve­ment in PPP loans, Hospedales false­ly iden­ti­fied her­self to law en­force­ment as Keyaira Bostic

Ac­cord­ing to the DOJ, Hospedales was charged with wire fraud, bank fraud, and con­spir­a­cy to com­mit wire fraud and bank fraud in con­nec­tion with fraud­u­lent PPP loans. The charg­ing doc­u­ments iden­ti­fied her as Keyaira Bostic.

On No­vem­ber 21, 2021, dur­ing her tri­al be­fore a ju­ry on the PPP fraud charges, Hospedales false­ly tes­ti­fied that her name was Keyaira Bostic. She was con­vict­ed by the ju­ry.

“Dur­ing these pro­ceed­ings, Hospedales pro­vid­ed false in­for­ma­tion to the pro­ba­tion of­fice re­gard­ing her iden­ti­ty and sur­ren­dered a US pass­port in the name of Keyaira Bostic that she had fraud­u­lent­ly ob­tained in 2012,” the DOJ said.

On Feb­ru­ary 3, 2022, it said the court sen­tenced Hospedales on her tri­al con­vic­tion for PPP fraud to three years and eight months in prison, three years of su­per­vised re­lease, and en­tered a writ­ten judg­ment against Hospedales in the name of “Keyaira Bostic.”

The DOJ said a sub­se­quent in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­firmed that Hospedales was not, in fact, Keyaira Bostic.

The state­ment from the DOJ said law en­force­ment ob­tained visa records that demon­strate that in March 2003, Hospedales en­tered the Unit­ed States from Trinidad and To­ba­go on a tem­po­rary visa un­der her true name.

The DOJ said Hospedales plead­ed guilty to ob­struc­tion of jus­tice for us­ing a false iden­ti­ty dur­ing her ear­li­er pros­e­cu­tion.

Her term of im­pris­on­ment, which will be served con­sec­u­tive­ly to her ear­li­er sen­tence for PPP fraud, is fol­lowed by three years of su­per­vised re­lease.

MI­A­MI, May 7, CMC

CMC/nk/kb/2023

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