Massive COVID Loan Fraud

Join me to hear the story of Paradise Williams, the ringleader behind a $3.3 COVID loan fraud conspiracy. This is eCrimeBytes.com Season 3, Episode 12: Massive COVID Loan Fraud.

Sources:

Transcript:

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:28:51
Keith
What’s up, you crazy bastards. Welcome to another week of eCrimeBytes. This is where I research the court documentation and roast the criminals so you don’t have to. All right, so this week I’m bringing you massive COVID loan fraud. Okay, so in case you’re under a rock and you need a reminder, March of 2020 everybody was indoors. Nobody basically nobody could go outside.

00:00:28:56 – 00:00:47:40
Keith
And because of that, a lot of people didn’t they weren’t making money. Okay. So there were a bunch of programs in the United States that were started to try to help people out during that time. There are four of them that were exploited in this crime that I’m just going to touch on the names here and briefly what they do.

00:00:47:44 – 00:01:14:12
Keith
And then we’re going to jump right into what the criminals did to exploit these places. Okay. So the very first program you need to know is the EIDL loan. E I D L and it stands for Economic injury Disaster loan. And this is given to businesses. And it’s a loan that can be up to $2 million. So it’s a very significant chunk of change for a lot of applicants.

00:01:14:17 – 00:01:53:45
Keith
There’s the Paycheck Protection program, the PPP, which is a forgivable loan to help keep workers employed. Okay. There is this thing called the emergency rental Assistance Program, and that is assistance to help renters and indirectly their landlords. Right. They basically provide monetary support to help people stay in their homes and their apartments. And then just individually in each state, there were expanded unemployment benefits.

00:01:53:45 – 00:02:17:49
Keith
And it just varied from state to state. But you can imagine that each state had their own thing where if usually they give you X during normal times, they might give you two times X, because now we’re in COVID and nobody has a job. And not not any of their fault either. It was because of the the virus.

00:02:17:54 – 00:02:24:44
Keith
So with that, with that background aside, let’s talk about our woman of the hour here.

00:02:24:44 – 00:02:28:05
Keith
This is Paradise Shaw Dreia Williams.

00:02:28:05 – 00:02:45:07
Keith
She enters the picture with a bang here. All right. She enters. I’m telling you, she’s entering the story here coming off a 90 day sentence for a DUI. Okay. And it wasn’t, she lucked out. It wasn’t even put into the books as a DUI.

00:02:45:18 – 00:03:05:57
Keith
It was put into the books as negligent driving. So I think if she would have had a DUI, it probably would have been worse than a 90 day sentence. If I am reading between the court documents correctly. So let me show you some pictures of her. The one I have on the screen. Okay. I got to give you a little bit of background.

00:03:06:01 – 00:03:26:14
Keith
The one on the left, that’s the one that I found. That’s her mug shot. And I got to say, as mug shots go, it’s a pretty good mug shot. Usually people look horrible in their mug shot, but this looks good enough. I would say it’s a least a driver’s license worthy photo, Right. I mean, I wouldn’t put this on my wall, but I would I would say if this is on my driver’s license,

00:03:26:14 – 00:03:43:32
Keith
I wouldn’t be embarrassed. Right. But it’s her mug shot. The other two, she’s definitely dressed very well and she’s out on the town. And we’re going to talk a little bit about her going out on the town and how she spends some of her money that she makes off these crimes. A little bit later, once I explain the crimes to you.

00:03:43:38 – 00:04:05:18
Keith
So hold on for that. So that was a set of pictures. Let me show you another set of pictures. And again, these all come off of her Instagram account, the one on the left. Looks like she’s getting ready to go out at night in the town. And not only that, if you look closely, she’s got some real serious bling on her chest.

00:04:05:22 – 00:04:29:09
Keith
You can definitely tell there’s gold in that necklace or even series of necklace necklaces, but I’d say probably a bunch of diamonds, too. And I will tell you, I’m pretty sure there are diamonds, because I’m going to point to a court document later on and show you that they say there’s diamonds in there. The middle picture, that’s her. And it looks like a rooftop of New York City trip.

00:04:29:09 – 00:04:53:58
Keith
And she’s wearing a shirt that literally says Rich on it. I know. I know The irony, right? When you find out how she got all the money and then on the right hand side, it just looks like they’re out at a club and one of her friends is taking her her picture. Okay. And here’s another set of club looking photos. And all her Instagram photos are like this.

00:04:54:03 – 00:05:20:19
Keith
Okay, I’m just going to show you a few. Here, I’ve showed you, what, maybe nine so far. And here we’ve got on the left hand side she’s showing a little bit of skin. In the middle there, she looks like out at a Las Vegas nightclub of some sort. And then the right hand side, I think she’s at a New York City high rise because you can definitely see that she’s looking down on the city and they’re all very Instagram model looking poses.

00:05:20:19 – 00:05:45:46
Keith
Okay. And you probably said, hey, Keith, you know, it’s all fun and great. These are just your traditional Instagram photos. And I’m I agree with you. Let’s kick it up a notch. If you go a little further. There’s her Instagram outdoor photos, let’s say. Okay. And the first to the left in the middle there is just her a I believe this is the Las Vegas pool of some sort.

00:05:45:51 – 00:06:12:18
Keith
And she took a picture and said some Instagram quote, kind of stuff where you’re like, ooh, I hope I’m her. The right hand side is her in Dubai. Okay. And I know this because the court paperwork later on said this picture she’s in Dubai. Okay. So she’s taking some expensive ass trips based upon all this money that she’s going to make off these crimes.

00:06:12:18 – 00:06:44:16
Keith
Okay. If you want to see more images of her, just in the videos, in these videos, every video that I produce for you, if you go to the description or the comments or whatever application that you’re on, click in there. It’s going to say sources, transcript, etc. Click in there. This is just one of the sources. If you go through my sources, you can see all the court paperwork that I’m telling you about and you’ll see all these pictures and you can look at all her pictures on the Instagram account that I’ve got linked in there.

00:06:44:20 – 00:07:07:21
Keith
So have fun. But hey, listen to this first. Watch this episode first. Don’t go looking at the booty pictures yet. Okay. The booty there’ll be some booty pictures in here, I promise you. Just stick around. And then when you’re done, go to my sources and you can look at all the booty pictures you want because she puts a bunch of bunch of them on Instagram for you.

00:07:07:25 – 00:07:42:19
Keith
Okay, So with that Paradise Williams in March of 2020, submitted fraudulent unemployment benefit applications to three states. The state of Washington, Nevada and South Carolina. Luckily for them, all three of them rejected them. Okay, I said they were fraudulent. Thank God they rejected them. Now, I wondered, did they reject them because they went, You were in prison.

00:07:42:24 – 00:08:07:03
Keith
You shouldn’t be collecting any unemployment benefits. I don’t know. The court paperwork didn’t connect those dots, but these. The points I just gave you were very close together in the documentation. So one would draw the conclusion that maybe she was in jail and the states went, You’re not supposed to be collecting unemployment. And they sound like they rejected these immediately.

00:08:07:08 – 00:08:35:02
Keith
So a couple months go by and it’s June 2020. Paradise now submitted fraudulent EIDL applications, which is that small business loan up to $2 million that I talked about earlier. They didn’t really specify exactly what it was that she what her reasoning was for the money. They just said she submitted some fraudulent ones in her name, her family’s name and her friends’ names.

00:08:35:07 – 00:08:52:15
Keith
And I thought to myself, if you’re going to start if you’re testing a crime, are you really going to put your name in there? And then if you’re not going to put your name, are going to put your family’s name in there because your family’s going to go, what? Keith did what? Well, that guy. It was Keith. It was Keith.

00:08:52:15 – 00:09:12:36
Keith
Go after him. I mean, I definitely wouldn’t put my family in there. And even if you don’t put your family in there, would you put your friends in there? Because you would lose those friends as soon as those fraudulent applications turned around and the law started looking at your friends, you’ll lose those friends immediately. So you imagine at some point she goes and starts using associates.

00:09:12:36 – 00:09:31:50
Keith
And I use the term loosely here, that’s just how it was worded in the court documentation. So I’m going with it. Associates, which I take is not even friends, just criminal associates. Okay. So she starts using these associates names to make these applications.

00:09:31:50 – 00:09:40:30
Keith
And then you may ask yourself why? What are the what did the Small Business Administration see on these applications that they said no?

00:09:40:35 – 00:10:00:35
Keith
Well, they say, Keith, because I talked to them personally. I know the Small Business Administration, we’re on a first name basis. I said SBA, what did you see? And they said, well, we looked at these applications and there are multiple applications, and she filed all of them with the same four email addresses over and over and over and over.

00:10:00:35 – 00:10:24:16
Keith
And really, we’re so goddamn busy that a lot of times our fraud department, when we’re looking for low hanging fruit like this, we will give it to our second grade class next door in the elementary school. Just say, hey, look for the same exact email address over and over and over, because those will be a high probability of being fraudulent applications.

00:10:24:21 – 00:10:49:00
Keith
And that’s how they found Paradise in this case. You’re going to see she’s going to change up her tactics here in a minute. And one of the ways that she changes up her tactics is not using her name, her family, or her friends. She has this associate that owns this salon. And I’m using air quotes here because I don’t know exactly if it was real or not.

00:10:49:05 – 00:11:11:58
Keith
Reading between the lines, it could have been set up just for criminal purposes. So just trying to give you all the information there. It could be real or it could also be completely on paper. But this friend owned it. Okay? And Paradise is like, Hey, friend. Or I’m saying friend aren’t I, not even a friend. Hey, associate, I don’t even like you that much.

00:11:11:58 – 00:11:33:47
Keith
I’m just going to call you fucking associate from now on. And her associate’s like, okay, what do you want me to do? And she says, I want you to allow me to make this fraudulent application for an EIDL loan in your name and your salon. And the friend goes, All right, all right, what’s in it for me? And she goes, You can keep about half, half of what we get.

00:11:33:52 – 00:11:52:39
Keith
And her friend goes, All right. So basically, free money. Her friend’s like, Yep, I’ll do all the work. I’ll do all the work. Paradise said I’ll do all the work. And her friend’s like, All right, you silly bastard, I’m in. And so Paradise sits down and she fills out the application in her friend’s name. I keep saying friend. Associates.

00:11:52:39 – 00:12:14:31
Keith
They’re not even friends at this point. You’re going to figure out why in a second. They’re definitely not friends at the end here. So Paradise sits down and she fills out the application for her associate and sends it in and she goes, Hey, as her associate, she’s like, Hey, I have $1.3 million in annual revenue in my salon, which sounds like a lot.

00:12:14:35 – 00:12:38:34
Keith
I don’t know much about salons, but if you’re making $1.3 million in your salon, that sounds like a good goddamn business. All right. Well, she said that and she’s like, Hey, my salon, You know, tough times, it’s COVID and nobody’s coming in for haircuts and coloring and whatever ladies like to do with salons, I don’t know. I don’t spend a lot time in salons.

00:12:38:39 – 00:12:57:54
Keith
So they put this on the paperwork and the government looks at it goes, You know what? You’re right. You can’t do hair when people aren’t coming in. We’re going to give you some money. We’re going to give you $150,000 because you had a $1.3 million in annual revenue. That’s a lot of revenue. We’re going to give you a lot of money.

00:12:57:59 – 00:13:26:31
Keith
And the associate looked at the $150,000 check and went, fuck, really, you’re gonna… really? Sweet. And so I should cash it, it sounds like. And then she went over to Paradise and she’s like, Here’s your $11,000. And Paradise is like, thanks and puts it away. And I don’t think Paradise knew exactly how much she got from the SBA.

00:13:26:31 – 00:13:55:07
Keith
In fact, I’m pretty sure she didn’t know. Okay. Because then later on, Paradise’s associate you know, takes money out cash in like ATM withdrawals. You imagine $150,000 if you’re taking out your she’s taking a lot of money. Okay. A lot of cash. And then at some point that associate calls the cops and is like, you need to come to my house.

00:13:55:07 – 00:14:15:38
Keith
And they’re all like, yeah, phone like this. Not even the cell phone anymore. The old kind where you had to hold it like a like a gun next to your head. And they’re like, Yes, yes, ma’am. How can we help you? They’re like a person named Paradise Williams is at my house. She assaulted me and just stole $60,000 in cash.

00:14:15:38 – 00:14:38:03
Keith
And the cops were like, Fuck. Okay, All right, we’re over there. And they come over. They’re like, We heard you were assaulted and had $60,000 worth of cash… Hey, hold on a second. You’re a college student, right? And they’re like, Yeah, yeah, I’m a college student. The associate says this. Like, how do you have $60,000 worth of cash. And the associate is like, never mind about that shit.

00:14:38:07 – 00:15:05:45
Keith
I just want a report written that Paradise Williams came over here and tried to beat me and take $60,000. And she took $60,000 worth of cash. That’s all I want. That’s all I want in the report. Don’t ask where the money came from, okay? And then so you start reading between the lines. And what I read was this associate made a lot of goddamn money based upon the crime that Paradise did.

00:15:05:45 – 00:15:32:16
Keith
Paradise figured that out. Figured out, Hey, how the fuck did I just get $11,000 out of this? Went back to get her half because you’re going to see she gets half in every other transaction here. So which is about $60,000 plus the $11,000 that she got previously from this associate that she didn’t pay her. Okay. So she basically broke in and stole it is what I read.

00:15:32:21 – 00:15:45:06
Keith
And then later on, I guess an associate and her are still talking, which is fucking amazing in my opinion. And the feds started talking to this associate when they did their investigation.

00:15:45:06 – 00:16:00:23
Keith
So there’s a text exchange I’ll just read to you. She says, Yo, the feds called my mom about the SBA today. That’s the Small Business Administration. She says, I don’t know who you told about it, but I never told nobody

00:16:00:23 – 00:16:27:31
Keith
like you said not to. People is talking. My God, Mom, hella people calling her about it, saying that I did it with you now, I don’t know what we going to do about this, but I’m not about to go to jail about it. The fuck. Okay, if I could translate for you off a text, it basically says, the feds are questioning me.

00:16:27:35 – 00:16:50:18
Keith
I’m not going down for this alone, so you better talk. Tell me what we’re going to be doing here. And she says this over text to Paradise, which you can imagine is terrible for them. Investigatively. Because the cops now they’re going to have that evidence. That’s how we’re reading it. That’s how we’re reading it. This podcast is because they have it.

00:16:50:23 – 00:17:07:38
Keith
Well, Paradise probably knowing that later on this podcaster will be reading about this, tried to pretend that she didn’t know what this was about. She says, LOL, get off of my line. Kind of like who dis new phone, you know, basically, why are you contacting

00:17:07:38 – 00:17:22:31
Keith
me? Okay. So I read a little more into this research about these loans, these EIDL loans, that Paradise she was preparing for her associates.

00:17:22:36 – 00:17:53:17
Keith
It wasn’t just the email addresses that she used over and over and over. She wasn’t very imaginative when it came to other aspects of these applications. Well, first of all, a lot of these companies, because they’re companies that you have to make these loans for, they’re small business loans, so you’re making company names. These company names, she didn’t make them like, you know, Rose Bud Cosmetics.

00:17:53:22 – 00:18:22:44
Keith
No, not at all. She would just take the person’s name, their first name, and then put an LLC on there. So if it was me, if she was doing this fraudulent scheme for my business and quote unquote, helping me out as one of her associates, my company name would be Keith LLC. Right. Okay. So that was that was the first tip off that there was something going as just first name LLC.

00:18:22:44 – 00:18:27:27
Keith
And when you started doing correlations of just First Names LLC, the other ones start to pop up.

00:18:27:27 – 00:18:53:41
Keith
That was the first. The second was the data that was used in the application was not changed. Or if it was changed, it wasn’t changed all that much. Okay, so there were four applications that claimed to have the exact exact amount in gross revenues of one…

00:18:53:46 – 00:18:55:38
Keith
I hate reading long numbers like this.

00:18:55:38 – 00:19:01:23
Keith
$1,347,232.

00:19:01:23 – 00:19:16:26
Keith
But you can imagine that’s a very, very specific number, right? It’s not just $1.3 million. It’s a very specific number. They use that exact number four times on these same applications over and over.

00:19:16:26 – 00:19:48:53
Keith
So again, that’s another thing investigators can go, What other applications used exactly this amount and you’ll find other coconspirators. Now, that’s not it. There’s more. Three of the applications also claimed approximately, in addition to these four, 1.347 million in gross revenue. So not exactly that number, but pretty goddamn close to that number. Okay. Just the last three digits, those are the ones that were different.

00:19:48:53 – 00:20:23:33
Keith
So it’s like she couldn’t look at it go 1.3 million I better really change it up to like 9.8 or maybe just, you know, three quarters of a million, maybe pull back a little bit. No, she just changed a couple of numbers at the end, hoping that nobody would notice. But we noticed we notice we’re talking about it in the podcast right now. And then in all seven instances, because I talked about four and then three and all seven instances of the same application since all the goods that were sold were approximately $50,000.

00:20:23:33 – 00:20:55:00
Keith
So she didn’t change that up either. And three of the applications, it was exactly the same $49,323, very specific and three of the applications and it’s just I can’t believe she didn’t change it. Now you went, Hey, Keith, Wow. Investigators, they’re really going to pick up on that, right? They’re going to pick up on the exact amounts. They’re going to pick up on the first name LLC.

00:20:55:04 – 00:21:22:15
Keith
They don’t really need much more help, do they? And I would say, no, they don’t need much more help. But Paradise gave it to them because three of the applications were submitted within 35 minutes of each other on July 13th, 2020. So you can even look at the system and go, These three landed really close in time to each other and look almost exactly the same.

00:21:22:20 – 00:22:20:50
Keith
The evidence is just stacking up at this point. Now, in these three instances, though, she didn’t use the first name LLC. She used Salon LLC, Salon LLC, comma and Salon LLC, period. Just basically sleight of hand on paperwork. Okay, so she does a lot of this and by the end of the year, Williams Paradise here personally filed at least 40 I’m sorry 38 fraudulent EIDL applications for fictitious places and she claimed a gross annual revenue of all these places of up to $14.8 million, seeking more than $4.1 million in assistance from the government and causing actually causing $300,000 to be dispersed from the government.

00:22:20:54 – 00:22:22:32
Keith
So we’re talking about big money at this point.

00:22:22:32 – 00:22:33:26
Keith
So now she sets her sights on PPP, which is the Paycheck Protection Program. Okay. And she sets up an alias or she uses an alias.

00:22:33:26 – 00:23:04:47
Keith
Her alias is not that far off her real name. It’s Shaw Dreia Williams. And later on, when investigators looking at these fraudulent applications that she made for PPP similarly that she did with the EIDL loans, they figured out that she made she made like her profit from this because she did this with her associates, $20,000 there. Okay. And so I started doing some research.

00:23:04:47 – 00:23:30:28
Keith
I was like, whoa, how how exactly did she make her money on here? This was weird. She would charge her associates $50. I said, okay. What she charged them maybe like $50 up front and then maybe $500 later on. How is this working out? No, $50 up front and then half of whatever the fraudulent loans are later on.

00:23:30:33 – 00:23:53:24
Keith
And I thought I was like, these loans are going to be thousands of dollars and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why the $50? Is that just like an honesty thing of your associate to, like, just pay me the $50 upfront? If you don’t pay me the $50, I know you’re just going to cheat me later on and I’m just not even going to bother not even going to bother doing this whole criminal enterprise with you.

00:23:53:29 – 00:24:19:08
Keith
It just didn’t make sense to me. But apparently she would charge them $50 upfront, and then when the loan was paid off, she would expect half of that amount back to her. And she was so successful in this enterprise that she would have random people contacting her. Okay? They would hear about the EIDL loans and the PPP loans and all that kind of stuff.

00:24:19:08 – 00:24:36:51
Keith
And I’m going to put a text exchange on your screen that was in the court paperwork where it was just a random person. She didn’t know who it was. It was just, hey, wanted to tap in and see if you could help me. And she says, Who is this? And then they said their name, which is blanked out in the court paperwork.

00:24:36:51 – 00:25:02:07
Keith
And she says, What do you need help with? And the person says PPP which is this second loan type that we were talking about. And she put a question mark or No, I’m sorry, the associate put a question mark and then put never mind if you’re not doing it no more. Hey, and it’s because there’s some time that goes by in here, like days go by in this conversation at this point.

00:25:02:12 – 00:25:24:31
Keith
And I think the person is probably like, well, Paradise isn’t doing this anymore, so I’m going to check in a couple more times. And then maybe she ghosted me. Well, then Williams comes back several days later. And was like, Hey. And then so she’s like, Can you do that for me? Referring back to the the PPP in the conversation.

00:25:24:36 – 00:25:36:52
Keith
And she goes, I need 50 up front for doing the app, probably thinking she’s a goddamn high roller, right? $50. my God. And then she goes, and then 3k when it

00:25:36:52 – 00:26:01:37
Keith
hits. And I’m thinking again why? Why do you need the $50 upfront? She did. So when this particular this associate number two’s application went through and was funded it actually was more than they expected.

00:26:01:42 – 00:26:27:53
Keith
Okay. And she said, I want $7,000 back. Okay. Earlier she said I wanted $3,000. So you got to imagine the payout was probably, what, $6,000? So now she says, I want $7,000 back and if I do my math right, that would be about a $14,000 loan that she got for the person. All right. And so if she’s saying she wants her money, bitches better have her money,

00:26:27:53 – 00:26:51:20
Keith
right? We saw what happened. Really. She came in and she assaulted the other associate and stole $60,000 worth of cash. Who knows what she’s going to do over this right. And then she sets her sights on unemployment benefits. And from what I read in the court paperwork, she was very adept at being able to get around California’s ID system.

00:26:51:20 – 00:27:27:09
Keith
And her and this other coconspirator worked specifically on this unemployment benefit system in California because of this method that she could, you know, used to get fraudulent to fraudulently get funds from the government. If you’re interested in any of this stuff, like I said, go in the description of the comments of this video and I put links to all the sources and all these coconspirators, their side stories, and you can go to the court documentation and read, you know, this is one side story with Tia Robinson,

00:27:27:09 – 00:27:46:04
Keith
was her name. Was that codefendant. And it has a whole tangent on this crime alone. If you’re interested in it, you can read all about it. I got to move on because she does so much crime. I just got I only can really touch on these things. So this is where she makes most of her money now is the Emergency Rental Assistance Program.

00:27:46:04 – 00:28:10:41
Keith
I think she hit gold one time on here and was like, Fuck, yes. And just kept going at it. So this is the fall of 2021. A little bit later in the COVID pandemic, there were these emergency rental assistance programs giving the states, and a lot of times states would then delegate the money to counties and there would be X amount that would be given to certain geographical areas.

00:28:10:41 – 00:28:33:20
Keith
And you can imagine it’s never enough, right? There’s people there’s a lot of people that needed money because nobody was making money and everybody was looking for some type of rental assistance. So there were only a fixed amount of funds that were there and the organizations had to figure out who was the most needy and who was the most qualified to get some of this money.

00:28:33:27 – 00:29:28:33
Keith
And usually it ended up being the people that were most likely to be evicted if they do not get this type of assistance, according to what I read. So you can imagine what they’re looking for in an applicant is quote unquote, low income and nearly homeless when they file these fraudulent applications. Now, not only are there not enough funds to go around and, you know, they’re taking them away from people that are low income and nearly homeless as a crime. They figured out that this type of loan could be paid out to landlords, too, so they could set up fake tenants and fake landlords and basically control this whole criminal process and just siphon money

00:29:28:33 – 00:29:54:55
Keith
off of the government fraudulently through this rental assistance program. Now, she goes big on this. She has five at least five co-defendants that I know of, and I’m going to bet she probably have more co-defendants that they didn’t charge that I don’t know about. She knew Paradise knew that she could not associate too many tenant applications with any one landlord or otherwise

00:29:54:55 – 00:30:21:52
Keith
that’s going to start throwing up red flags. I don’t know why she knew this, but the court paperwork said that she definitely knew this. So this is the reason why she started creating a bunch of fictitious landlords, at least 25 fictitious landlords. And if I haven’t stated already, all this stuff is electronic crime, because most of this stuff is filed electronically and a lot of the stuff is actually signed electronically.

00:30:21:52 – 00:30:51:29
Keith
I know this landlord stuff that I’m talking about here in a minute. A lot of this stuff is done electronically. So to make these false landlords, these 25 false landlords, 25 plus false landlords, she created false documentation such as ledgers, landlord attestations, meaning it’s kind of like a legal statement of I’m a landlord, this is my tenant, this is how much I charge.

00:30:51:34 – 00:31:24:53
Keith
And she falsified leases and all that kind of stuff to support her wanting funds through this rental assistance program. And at some point I think they almost had to prove that these false people that they were filing these fraudulent applications under had to they had to have like eviction notices. So they started creating false eviction notices to make it look like they were in imminent threat of losing their home.

00:31:24:54 – 00:31:44:35
Keith
So that way they would get their, they would get their funds ahead of more really people that needed it, right. I mean, there were real people in line that wanted and needed this money and they tried to make it look more emergency in their case than the other real cases out there so that they could scoop it up

00:31:44:35 – 00:31:46:05
Keith
instead of the real needy people.

00:31:46:05 – 00:32:24:03
Keith
Okay. So within six months, she submitted another 21 fraudulent applications using the aliases Shirley Williams and Shaw Williams as fictitious landlords. She caused her county, King County, to pay out at least three quarter of $1,000,000 into a bank account that Paradise owned herself. She submitted another 58 fraudulent applications using names and aliases of co-defendants in this case, resulting in the payment of over $2 million in emergency rental assistance.

00:32:24:07 – 00:32:47:42
Keith
Okay. Now you have to imagine that half of these funds come back to her in kick back because that was the deal, right? She would file this shit. If you got $1,000,000, you got to give her a half a million dollars out of that. That was the deal. So out of the $2 million that she made for her associates, you figure she made about $1,000,000.

00:32:47:47 – 00:33:20:45
Keith
You’re going to see how she spent it here in a minute. All right. Give you a statistic that blew my mind. Okay. So I looked up, her county is King County in Washington. Okay. So they received over $300 million in this emergency rental assistance program, funding from the federal government and state grants. And just all together, when she went in and said, I want a chunk of this criminally, she got $3 million.

00:33:20:50 – 00:33:50:39
Keith
That’s 1% of that county’s funding for that one program she took in loan by herself. I mean, it was codefendants, but she was behind that whole thing was 1% of the disbursements of that fund. That blew my mind. That blew my mind. Okay. How she spent her money. The court documents it tells us it tells us in great detail how she spent her money.

00:33:50:44 – 00:34:14:24
Keith
In fact, if you don’t even want to read the court documentation, you can go to her Instagram account and just look across there. You can tell what she spent her money on. It was it was mostly her looks and looking like she had money and jewelry and things. She spent it on luxury cars, lavish vacations, diamond jewelry, designer goods and plastic surgery in Colombia.

00:34:14:24 – 00:34:40:39
Keith
And you probably stop me and say, Keith, you talking about Columbia, Maryland, where near where you live. No, Colombia, the actual the actual country. She went to Colombia for surgery, which sounds like she did that during pandemic times, which I imagine might have been a little scary. Who knows? She also had a trip to Miami in June of 2021 where she rented a Lambo and I was like.

00:34:40:44 – 00:35:08:27
Keith
This case this case wouldn’t have been a case the way it was if she wouldn’t have rented a Lamborghini right? In the fall of 2021 after she started getting a bulk of this money where she’s now approaching millions of dollars, she her bank account showed that she spent thousands of dollars on luxury items such as custom jewelry. And I showed you some of those pictures earlier and I’ll show you some coming up here in a minute.

00:35:08:32 – 00:35:28:18
Keith
And specifically Christian Dior. I don’t know why the court documentation was very specific about that Christian Dior. And I think it’s because her Instagram name is actually just Paradise underscore Dior. And maybe they were trying to highlight that. Or maybe she just spent a shit ton of money with Christian Dior that they were like, We’ve got to mention this.

00:35:28:18 – 00:35:55:27
Keith
It’s just so much money. So one of the things that she bought was a car. She bought a 2017 Lexus ES sedan. And I’m going to put a picture on your screen here. She spent approximately $36,000 on this. And I went, You got some money and you spent it on a 2017 Lexus. And probably what we’ll say, 2020 ish, 2021.

00:35:55:32 – 00:36:13:08
Keith
So it’s a three or four year old car. I mean, you’re talking about the type of cars that I would buy, The podcaster would buy that I wouldn’t buy a Lexus, but I would buy a like a 3 to 4 year old car and be okay with that. That’s what she bought with her proceeds here. And I thought, you know what, you’re not doing well.

00:36:13:08 – 00:36:32:16
Keith
You’re not you’re not really flashing the kind of money that you’ve pulled down here, Right? I mean, it’s an old car. She says, You know what? I agree with you. I agree with you, Keith. I got to do better. I’m going to go buy a Land Rover. And I said, a Land Rover. Okay. I’ve seen them never owned one.

00:36:32:16 – 00:36:59:02
Keith
They’re pretty nice looking. And she says, yes, yes, I’m going to buy a 2018 Land Rover, Range Rover Velar SUV. I don’t know if I pronounce that Velar name correctly because it’s so expensive. I’ve never even seen that one. And she goes, I’m going to pay for it with 60 just over $63,000 worth of cash. And I’m going to bring it in using $100 bills or higher.

00:36:59:07 – 00:37:27:22
Keith
And I thought, oh my God, because if it’s $100 bills and $63,000 in cash, that’s a lot of bills. That’s a suitcase, right? I mean, did she hire somebody to come with her? These are all questions. These are all questions that go unanswered because it’s not in the court paperwork. But I do think them. All right. So by the time of her arrest, she took this vehicle and custom wrapped it.

00:37:27:27 – 00:37:33:32
Keith
Okay. And you’re probably thinking, Keith, you have a picture of this wrapping. Yes, I do.

00:37:33:32 – 00:37:49:42
Keith
Boom. On your screen right now. And you’re probably like, that’s fucking hideous. It looks like a chameleon. And I know I looked at this thing and I was like, This is the ugliest wrap job I have ever seen. I first of all, I wouldn’t have wrapped I wouldn’t have wrapped this car.

00:37:49:42 – 00:38:16:51
Keith
I would have had a really nice cherry paint job on this and just left it. But she wrapped it, and I think it kind of looks ugly. But where your eye should be going is that sign underneath her car. My friends, it is a giant handicap sign under that parking spot because she’s such an asshole that she’s going to take her wrapped Land Rover at her apartment complex and park it this handicapped parking spot.

00:38:16:51 – 00:38:32:36
Keith
And I will tell you, there’s nothing in the court paperwork about her having a disability of any sort. So this, my friends, this is very egregious in my opinion. I say that not not joking. This kind of this actually one of the things that pisses me

00:38:32:36 – 00:38:37:45
Keith
off. All right. So I promise you, there are diamonds. There are diamonds, too.

00:38:37:45 – 00:38:40:42
Keith
Here’s two Instagram photos that the government

00:38:40:42 – 00:38:55:30
Keith
put it directly in the court documentation of, hey, look, she is very, very proud of all the money that she stole. And of course, she’s not saying stolen, but all the money that she has that she got through this crime.

00:38:55:35 – 00:39:18:04
Keith
All right. And you can see there, she that’s one of the necklaces. This is the closer up on it. And it’s it’s definitely got diamonds in it. It’s got a lot of gold and it’s definitely got some diamonds. And if you look at her hands, you know, diamond rings. She’s got a diamond bracelet. She’s got a diamond encrusted watch, it looks like.

00:39:18:09 – 00:39:41:28
Keith
So she’s got some major bucks on her body in that left hand photo, the right hand photo, again, it’s like a designer outfit that she has on and a bunch of, you know, jewelry. And I believe this one. Yep. This one is in Las Vegas. So I imagine she’s out shopping and spending

00:39:41:28 – 00:39:42:54
Keith
heavily.

00:39:42:54 – 00:39:50:27
Keith
And then there were trips to New York, New York, Scottsdale, Mexico and Dubai.

00:39:50:36 – 00:40:18:43
Keith
All this she had to have money to go there, right? Well, that was that was money that she stole through these fraudulent schemes. And I got pictures of this. We got the left hand side. That’s New York City, though that’s the one where she’s wearing the the the Rich blouse and then the right hand side, you can see she’s at a place in Scottsdale and she’s definitely wearing a lot of encrusted diamonds on her

00:40:18:43 – 00:40:20:23
Keith
necklace.

00:40:20:23 – 00:40:36:41
Keith
And then the next set of photos, this is from Dubai. So the left hand side, she’s with a live wild tiger. And then on the right hand side, she’s at a pool. So here she’s definitely spending some bucks to fly

00:40:36:41 – 00:40:37:28
Keith
overseas.

00:40:37:28 – 00:40:42:58
Keith
And you look at these pictures and you’re like, Keith, that doesn’t look like all her money. She probably could have spent more, right?

00:40:43:03 – 00:41:05:44
Keith
Yeah, she could have. She had some homes, too. Let me tell you about these. So her home, she has homes in Arizona. I talked about Washington earlier. That’s where she was getting her rental assistance, saying she was about to be kicked out. But in Arizona, she’s got some some seriously nice homes. She had a townhome rented under an alias named Darnell Peterson.

00:41:05:48 – 00:41:28:52
Keith
And Peterson was actually a name of one of her coconspirators. They just changed the first name. I don’t know why. Again, if you’re trying not to get caught, don’t use the last name of one of your coconspirators. But they did. They used it. Okay. So she rented this townhome under the name Darnell Peterson, and they moved to Arizona.

00:41:28:52 – 00:41:49:50
Keith
And this thing I’m going to put a picture on there for you now. It has a 60 foot pool. It’s got a sauna. It’s got spa facilities, and they describe it on the website as resort style living. And it looks like you’re staying at a, you know, a very, very high end hotel. But you’re living there at your it’s your apartment, it’s your townhome.

00:41:49:52 – 00:42:02:51
Keith
And so they decide they’re just going to stop paying on the townhome that I just showed you and they’re going to move into someplace bigger. And I thought that only happened in an office space where you just stop paying for things when you don’t want to pay for them anymore.

00:42:02:56 – 00:42:13:55
Keith
But it happens in real life too. And they did it. They just stopped paying on it and moved into a new place. And this place is just as luxurious, I would say maybe even more luxurious than the first place that I showed you.

00:42:13:55 – 00:42:21:52
Keith
I got to pop a picture of the courtyard on your screen and again, it looks like a very high end hotel.

00:42:21:57 – 00:42:35:36
Keith
They represent themselves on their website as a quote unquote luxury perfected with amenities such as weekly live grand piano performances, poolside cafe service and a hot

00:42:35:36 – 00:42:36:07
Keith
tub.

00:42:36:07 – 00:43:18:08
Keith
All right. Well, that’s all she spent her money. Now, March 4th, 2022, a knock at the door, very loud knock, because the FBI is there and they say we have a search warrant. And they searched her place. But apparently Paradise she still does not give a fuck. Right. They’re searching her place and she knows about it. And even a like up to a year later, a year later, on the eve of her actual arrest in May of 2023, Paradise submitted a fraudulent application to the Arizona Emergency Assistance Program.

00:43:18:13 – 00:43:41:10
Keith
I don’t know if it’s because she couldn’t pay that first townhome that she had and had to let it go back or what it was. But she was doing her thing again, trying to get some money and they caught her. And she was saying that she lost her job after contracting COVID and all that kind of stuff. So even though she has been through a search warrant, she is still submitting fraudulent applications.

00:43:41:12 – 00:44:02:32
Keith
That was mind blowing to me. And she even made $8,400 from that scheme before they shut it down and arrested her. So May 31st of 2023, and I know we’re zooming and ahead for you because there’s a lot of court stuff that happens that you probably just don’t want to hear about it. You just want to hear about

00:44:02:36 – 00:44:27:02
Keith
the high points. So let me give you the high points. The indictment comes out, which is where they charge her. And they said, Hey, Miss Paradise, we’re going to charge you with a lot of shit. Counts one through 19 wire fraud because there was wire fraud everywhere. You were involved. Wire fraud everywhere, my friend. And we’re going to charge you with 19 counts of it, which I would say just based upon what I read was probably pretty low.

00:44:27:03 – 00:44:59:05
Keith
They probably could have charged her with more counts. 20-24 was money laundering, but it was concealment. I don’t know exactly what that legal difference is because in counts 25-26 it was basically the same thing, but it was money laundering, spending. So there’s these two different money laundering types of laws that they hit her with to equate to six counts of money laundering, and that’s on top of the 19 wire fraud counts

00:44:59:05 – 00:45:25:46
Keith
I talked about. And then the government says, you know, all that money you made, we saw, we saw it. We want to back. Okay. All that shit you bought your Land Rover, your Lexus, anything that you have made for money from this crime, we want it back. And any cash you have left over too, we’ll take that. And then I sat there and I was like, I read the indictment.

00:45:25:46 – 00:45:33:18
Keith
I flipped it over and it was a blank page. And I was like, government, are you fucking kidding me? Where is the charge for the

00:45:33:18 – 00:45:46:59
Keith
handicapped spot that she parked in with that loud ass Land Rover and didn’t have the handicapped sticker? I’m a little pissed about that. I’m a little pissed about the fact you did not charge her with that because that kind of pissed me off.

00:45:47:09 – 00:45:54:13
Keith
Okay? That was a crime. And you know what else is a crime? That wrap job on that vehicle. Also a crime. It looked

00:45:54:13 – 00:46:10:24
Keith
hideous. Okay, so somewhere along the lines, Paradise was like ohhh I’m going to plead guilty. But not to everything okay? Those were a lot of charges you threw at me. 19 wire fraud charges. I can’t do that much time.

00:46:10:24 – 00:46:39:53
Keith
I will admit I was guilty to one wire fraud charge and one money laundering charge. You pick em. I don’t give a shit which one it is. I will only say I’m guilty to one of each. And the government was probably like, yes, you know confused. Like, we got her on a charge. But Jesus, they only got her out one wire charge wire fraud charge? That seem very light to me, but the government accepted it.

00:46:39:53 – 00:47:15:33
Keith
Okay, so that was her plea deal. So, you know, it comes a point in time… It wasn’t officially a sentencing hearing, but it was their arguments for sentencing for and against a leniency, leniency in the sentencing. This happened in February 27th of 2024. The government went up there and they said, hey, Paradise is a tornado of fraud. Not only that, but she was a tornado of just crime before we even found out about her, because she was there was a DUI like quote unquote, DUI.

00:47:15:38 – 00:47:38:02
Keith
She was in jail for for a while and all that other stuff that podcaster found in her background. So she did a lot of stuff just before she gets to this crime. And now she did this crime, which was heinous enough because she took millions of dollars away from people that actually needed it during the COVID pandemic. And that’s horrible.

00:47:38:11 – 00:48:04:03
Keith
And because of that, we want 110 months. And again, I went fuck government, That sounds goddamn random. And I did the math. I got my calculator and I was like, 9.1667 years. Check mate government. She could never complete it because the sixes just keep going. Sorry, math nerds. I know. So anyways, it was just over nine years and I was like nine years.

00:48:04:08 – 00:48:30:53
Keith
Okay. Okay. Yeah, about ten years. I could. I could feel okay with that. And they said, also, we want five years supervised release. And I was like, That’s probably a good call. Good call, because she’s always in trouble. Usually three years is average, right? So five years is kind of a lot in these cases. And then they said we want all that money back, which we estimate is about $3.3 million.

00:48:30:58 – 00:48:56:10
Keith
And the defense were up there, went, okay, well, we don’t have a lot to argue. Well, she’s been addicted to drugs, opiates, specifically, and alcohol. Let’s see what else. Well, her father. Yep, Her father died when she was 13 from heroin. So her life was kind of shitty. She came from poverty. The defense up there, like, I’m kind of on a roll now.

00:48:56:10 – 00:49:26:24
Keith
Came from poverty. Yeah, poverty. She was mocked for second hand clothes at school, so therefore she learned to fit in by shoplifting clothes and things. And she did it for she did that and she did this whole crime for money, just for social acceptance from her peer group. And I was like, really? That’s your argument? You did this crime for peer acceptance.

00:49:26:24 – 00:49:33:14
Keith
Okay. Let’s say she did. Let’s say she did all that because of she wanted peer acceptance. Right.

00:49:33:14 – 00:49:43:07
Keith
That doesn’t explain why she parked in the fucking handicapped spot. Right. She parked in the handicapped spot. You knew she was a douche from the beginning just because of that, right?

00:49:43:09 – 00:49:49:02
Keith
It had nothing to do with peer acceptance. I felt like this is just a giant, giant

00:49:49:02 – 00:50:07:47
Keith
excuse. And then the defense goes on up there. At the end of their argument was like, Hey, could you please just give her four years? And and this is what I thought was weird. I’m going to quote this appropriate period of supervised release.

00:50:07:52 – 00:50:25:34
Keith
And I was like, You’re not even going to give them anything like, like three years. You’re not going to give them anything to go off of because they’re going to probably take the middle. Right? I mean, at least you could say one year. No, but they were like the appropriate period of supervised release. So she’s probably going to get the high end of the supervised release.

00:50:25:34 – 00:50:46:03
Keith
If I had to guess. And then the judge looks at this list of both of the arguments is like, yes, government. I know. Yeah, she swindled a lot of people out. Yes. Defense I know she had a bad background, but lot of people do and they still don’t swindle the government. I’m going to give her five years. And I looked at that.

00:50:46:05 – 00:51:15:59
Keith
I was like five years. Feels a little light. Feel a little light. I mean, it’s still a lot of a lot of time. Feels a little light, but it’s still a lot of time. And the court said, hey, you know, we’ll make a recommendation so she can be near her family in Phoenix. And if you say, all right, well, maybe she’ll get out in five years, turn her life around, get a good paying job, and start to pay back that restitution she owed.

00:51:15:59 – 00:51:40:18
Keith
What was the restitution. And again, the court says, yeah, this is the part where we’re going to get you… $3.3 million in restitution. So when you get out in five years and you try to find a job as an ex-con, try to pay some of that son of a bitch back because it’s going to take a while. All right. And so, as promised, as I promised, we’re basically to the end of this case now.

00:51:40:23 – 00:52:10:23
Keith
And as promised, I just want to touch on her coconspirators. She did have a bunch of coconspirators throughout here. I talked about, you know, these EIDL loans, the people on the unemployment benefits and all this. But she had help. She had a person named D’Arius Jackson. She had Tia Robinson, she had Rayvon Peterson, which is the person that she was with when they made that house lease under the name of Darnell Peterson.

00:52:10:23 – 00:52:39:59
Keith
I don’t know why Rayvon Peterson would want to be associated with Darnell Peterson when they’re doing a crime. But he did. And then she had another coconspirator named David Martinez. Now, they all pled guilty. Okay. And for participation in the scheme. And the judge sentenced Jackson, the first person I mentioned, three years in prison, sentenced Robinson to 18 months in prison.

00:52:40:04 – 00:53:02:09
Keith
Martinez and Peterson are scheduled to be sentenced. And I checked right before I recorded. And I they didn’t have their sentencing, but it should be any time now. So by the time this comes out, I bet you the sentencing gets announced. And then, so both of them are going to be mid-March is when they come out. I didn’t say the date.

00:53:02:14 – 00:53:30:00
Keith
It’s going to be mid-March, so we’ll look for it. A lot of times, scheduling kind of gets weird with court. So if he gets bumped out maybe another month, that can happen in court. Somebody will get sick or somebody will go on vacation. It just happens and like I said, everybody in this case, including that list that I just talked about, everybody had heavy, heavy criminal background, things like assault on police officers to robbery, you name it.

00:53:30:00 – 00:53:34:43
Keith
It was just, almost any crime you can imagine.

00:53:34:43 – 00:53:52:47
Keith
So with that, I my final thoughts, $3.3 million, that’s a lot of fraud that she did some work but that’s also a lot of restitution. I don’t I don’t know how she’s ever going to be able to pay that back. That’s a lot of money.

00:53:52:51 – 00:53:59:39
Keith
Even with a normal I.T. job. I don’t know how somebody could pay that back in any reasonable amount of time.

00:53:59:39 – 00:54:15:38
Keith
And so Paradise was the ringleader in this whole thing. And it was kind of interesting. They tried to argue that she wasn’t and she just kind of fell into the ringleader roll because she just saw that she could do this. But she was the ringleader and she got five years because she was a ringleader.

00:54:15:43 – 00:54:25:38
Keith
I felt that was a little light. You know, the government asked for nine. I kind of felt like it should be close to nine. But she got five. She asked for four.

00:54:25:38 – 00:54:31:14
Keith
And if anything, if anything, they should have added time because of that

00:54:31:14 – 00:54:32:51
Keith
wrap job on that Land Rover.

00:54:32:51 – 00:54:54:50
Keith
I cannot get that out of my mind. I mean, you saw the picture of that, right? That picture of that Land Rover. That’s an awful, awful wrap job. She should get a couple of years for that alone and then the handicapped spot right there, that’s… tack on another five years. Listen, Paradise. I know you got five. I know you got five, but we’ll see you in ten.

00:54:54:50 – 00:54:57:46
Keith
Okay. Just for parking in the handicapped spot. We’ll see you in

00:54:57:46 – 00:55:16:08
Keith
ten. So I hope you enjoyed that episode. I tried to put another bananas episode together for you, and it had a lot of weird twists and turns I wasn’t prepared for when I was going through it. I was not prepared for the booty pictures. Okay. So I figured I would share the love and put that in the thumbnail.

00:55:16:08 – 00:55:40:26
Keith
Maybe that’s what drove you here. And if you’re if you’re here at the end of this and still listening to this, I very much appreciate it. Please like, subscribe, thumbs up, follow. Do any positive affirmation you can on these videos and audio if you’re listening to just the audio side of this. That helps me so much to just get this in front of other people that haven’t seen this type of material.

00:55:40:31 – 00:56:02:12
Keith
And if you know of anybody that likes true crime podcasts that has some element of electronic crime in it and the host is not that serious but still tells you the truth, please, please share these types of things with them. Have them join us weekly. I would love to have them join us and I hope to see you back next week.

00:56:02:25 – 00:56:09:35
Keith
We’re going to pick another bonkers case and go through it. And I appreciate ya staying around this long this week. All right, Thanks. Bye.

DrKeithJones.com

Massive COVID Loan Fraud

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