Florida lawmaker charged with Covid reduction fraud

CNN  — 

Federal prosecutors introduced fees Wednesday towards a Florida state consultant who allegedly swindled hundreds of {dollars} in coronavirus reduction loans from the Small Enterprise Administration.

State Rep. Joseph Harding obtained greater than $150,000 in SBA loans by mendacity on his mortgage purposes, in accordance with a information launch from the Justice Division. Prosecutors allege Harding listed dormant enterprise entities on his purposes, fabricated the numbers of individuals he employed and submitted faux financial institution statements.

Harding, 35, is about to go to trial for fees of wire fraud, cash laundering, and making false statements, DOJ mentioned within the launch. A wire fraud conviction carries a most sentence of 20 years in jail, whereas cash laundering and making false statements carry a most of 10 and 5 years, respectively.

His trial is about for January 11 in Gainesville, Florida.

Harding was elected to the Florida Home of Representatives in 2020. He nonetheless holds the general public workplace, in accordance with his web site.

CNN has reached out to Harding’s workplace for remark.

In a press release to the The New York Times, he mentioned he had pleaded not responsible throughout an preliminary court docket look Wednesday. “I need the general public and my constituents to know that I totally repaid the mortgage and cooperated with investigators as requested,” Harding instructed the Occasions.

The Florida Republican has drawn the nationwide highlight earlier than, as a sponsor of the controversial legislation that banned certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identification within the classroom that opponents dubbed the “Don’t Say Homosexual” regulation. The laws formally named the “Parental Rights in Schooling” regulation, signed by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in March, set off a nationwide firestorm and drew speedy pushback from LGBTQ advocates.

Investigators have mentioned that billions of dollars of Covid-19 relief funds have been obtained utilizing fabricated, stolen or faux data. The Justice Division’s Covid-19 Fraud Enforcement Job Pressure has introduced a number of high-profile fraud instances throughout the nation.