SCRANTON – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced today that Angela Castillo, age 39, of Freeland, PA, was sentenced on November 8, 2023, by United States District Judge Robert D. Mariani, to 10 months imprisonment, to be followed by a 3-year term of supervised release, with 5 months of electronic monitoring, in connection a wire fraud scheme involving the preparation and submission of numerous false Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) applications.
According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, between June 2020 and September 2020, on behalf of other individuals and in exchange for payment, Castillo prepared and submitted to the United States Small Business Association (SBA) at least 40 false EIDL applications containing material misrepresentations. Castillo’s conduct resulted in the SBA paying out approximately $163,000.00 in COVID-19 relief funds to individuals, none of whom actually owned a qualifying small business and who therefore were not entitled to receive such funds under the program. At her sentencing, Castillo was ordered to pay $163,000.00 in restitution to the SBA.
The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffery St John prosecuted the case.
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
