A Winchester man has been convicted of fraudulently seeking more than $13 million in forgivable loans intended for small businesses struggling through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elijah Majak Buoi, 40, was arrested and charged with four counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to a financial institution in June 2020 and indicted by a federal jury on the charges in July 2020.
Charges of wire fraud can carry up to 20 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine, and charges of making a false statement to a financial institution provides for a sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV scheduled sentencing for June 16.
Buoi, who lives in one of the wealthiest communities in the United States with average household incomes of more than $200,000 in 2016 according to a Bloomberg ranking, submitted six fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, applications on behalf of his company, Sosuda Tech LLC, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Court documents also show he filed for and claimed state unemployment benefits at the same time he was filing fake claims for the loans as the owner of the business. Prosecutors say they brought this up to “complete the story of the crime by providing the immediate context” as state unemployment fraud allegations are not tried in federal proceedings.
PPP was created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES,...
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