Claims are on a person who is a resident of Washington DC for having received $2.1 million as relief loans from the federal and inappropriately obtaining $500,000 from the Archdioceses of Washington. Prosecutors claim is that this person has used the money to buy rowhouse worth a million dollars, a sports car, and yacht. Further charging this person who is named Kenneth Gaughan, prosecutors with the US Attorney’s Office state how Mr. Gaughan forged paperwork and bank account records for receiving these funds.
By applying to Small Business Administration lenders under companies that can register emotional support animals, Mr. Gaughan is claimed by the prosecutor to have received this whopping sum of $2.1 million. This check was given to Mr. Vaughan by the Paycheck Protection program and other Economic Injury Disaster Loans. This is the money that Mr. Gaughan is alleged to have used for purchasing $1.13 million rowhouses in Northeast DC a $300,000 yacht and $46,000 sports car.
As per the release by the acting Attorney Michael R. Sherwin he goes,” We will not tolerate the exploitation of this national emergency for personal gain. This Office will not allow fraudsters to steal taxpayer money intended to help small businesses that are currently struggling as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
About inappropriately obtaining the sum of $500,000, the facts read in the claims go like, Mr. Gaughan had obtained a sum of $472,000 when he was working as an assistant superintendent of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, the Hyattsville location. “Anti-bullying, crisis intervention, and professional development programs at approximately 95 Catholic schools overseen by ADW, located in Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George’s, and St. Mary’s Counties in Maryland, and Washington, D.C.,” invoices for all these were faked by Vaughan from his working tenure i.e. from June 2010 to April 2018 as per the alleging of a 12-count indictment.
Mr. Vaughan is also claimed to gain money by asking the archdiocese to pay companies for services that weren’t provided by them and he also did not let the archdiocese known that he owned these three companies.
“Mr. Gaughan was so emboldened by deceiving a church for eight years he then, allegedly, turned his deception to the government. Stealing funds that were meant to be a lifeline for struggling businesses during an unprecedented economic downturn, and greedily using them to satisfy his own materialistic desires,” says FBI Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Boone who also called Mr. Vaughan to have a “history of deception.”