A freshwater spring bubbles amid mangroves, cabbage trees and red cedars on Sweetheart Island, an uninhabited two-acre piece of paradise about a mile off the coast of this small Gulf Coast town.
Pelicans dive nearby into the cool waters of Florida’s Withlacoochee Bay and open views to the west promise breathtaking sunsets.
It might seem like the perfect vacation for Florida businessman Patrick Parker Walsh.
Instead, he is serving five and a half years in prison for stealing nearly $8 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds that he used, in part, to buy Sweetheart Island.
While Walsh’s private island is among the more unusual purchases by pandemic fraudsters, his crime is not unique.
He was one of thousands of thieves who committed the greatest crime in US history.
Patrick Parker Walsh, left, heads to his car with his wife in Gainesville, Fla. on January 31, 2023, after he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for stealing nearly $8 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds. AP
They could potentially rob more than $280 billion in federal COVID-19 aid; Another $123 billion was wasted or misused.
The loss represents nearly 10% of the $4.3 trillion the US government has spent to mitigate the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.
An AP review of hundreds of pandemic fraud cases shows pictures of thieves and scam artists spending lavishly on homes, luxury watches and diamond jewelry, Lamborghinis and other expensive cars.
Hundreds of people have been charged with stealing more than $830 million in COVID-19 emergency aid after a nationwide operation by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, the US Department of Justice said. AP
The stolen handouts also paid for long nights at strip clubs, gambling in Las Vegas and bucket list vacations.
Their crime is quite simple: The government’s goal is to get cash into the hands of struggling people and businesses with minimal hassle, especially during the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis.
Protection to eliminate cheaters has been dropped.
Associated Press reporter Richard Lardner kayaks to Sweetheart Island, off the coast of Yankeetown, Fla., on Aug. 5, 2023.AP
As Walsh’s case and thousands of others have shown, stealing the money is as easy as lying on an application.
Thieves come from all walks of life and all corners of the world.
There’s a Tennessee rapper who bragged about how easily he stole more than $700,000 in pandemic unemployment insurance on YouTube.
A former pizzeria owner and cryptocurrency-themed radio show host bought an alpaca farm in Vermont with stolen help.
And a former Nigerian government official who raked in about half a million dollars in COVID-19 relief benefits was wearing a $10,000 watch and a $35,000 gold chain when he was arrested.
Nearly 3,200 defendants have been charged with COVID-19 aid fraud, according to the US Department of Justice. About $1.4 billion in stolen pandemic aid has been seized.
Patrick Parker Walsh was robbed of more than $280 billion in federal COVID-19 aid — using some of that money to buy Sweetheart Island.AP
Investigators will not catch every criminal.
The scale and scope of the fraud is too great. Outbreak cases often rely on digital evidence, which is perishable, and the financial trail can go cold over time, said Bob Westbrooks, former executive director of the federal Pandemic Response Accountability Committee.
“The uncomfortable truth is that the federal criminal justice system is not fully equipped to handle the unprecedented volume of pandemic aid fraud cases, large and small, and involving thousands of domestic and foreign actors,” Westbrooks said.
The Justice Department’s top officials were not swayed by the enormous task.
They have created a special “strike force” to hunt down thieves of COVID-19 aid and vow not to give up.
“We will continue to do so as long as necessary,” Deputy US Attorney Lisa Monaco said in August.
Konstantinos Zarkadas, a debt-ridden New York doctor, joined the gallery of COVID-19 fraudsters by falsifying at least 11 separate applications for pandemic aid that generated nearly $3.8 million, according to prosecutors.
He bought $140,000 worth of Rolex and Cartier watches for himself and family members and made a large down payment on a yacht, according to court records.
Zarkadas used about $3 million to pay part of a previous civil judgment against him for violating a real estate lease.
His most brazen act was sending $80,000 in cash back to the government to settle a federal lawsuit alleging he violated the Controlled Substances Act by dispensing more than 20,000 doses of a weight-loss drug without keeping accurate records, prosecutors said.
New York state revoked Zarkadas’ medical license shortly after he was sentenced to more than four years in prison for sweeping up aid to the epidemic.
The stolen funds financed the high lifestyle of Lee E. Price III, a Houston resident with prior felony convictions for forgery and robbery.
Lee Price III. Price, a Houston resident who submitted nearly $1.7 million in bogus pandemic relief applications on behalf of businesses that existed only on paper, according to court records. AP
He defrauded nearly $1.7 million by submitting fake aid applications on behalf of businesses that existed only on paper, court records show.
Price wasted little time blowing $14,000 on a Rolex and more than $233,000 for a flashy white Lamborghini Urus, a luxury SUV that can go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds.
He also spent thousands of dollars at Casanova, a Houston strip club.
Price was sentenced to more than nine years in prison.
Vinath Oudomsine from Georgia also created a fake company that he claimed made $235,000 a year and had 10 employees.
A few weeks after Oudomsine applied for epidemic relief, the government asked him for $85,000 to keep his non-existent business afloat.
Oudomsine spent nearly $58,000 on a 1999 Pokémon Charizard card, which depicts a golden dragon-like creature, jaws wide open, ready to attack.
While not as valuable as a rare baseball card — a mint-condition Mickey Mantle card that sold for $12.6 million last year — Pokémon merchandise can fetch big bucks as collectors have driven up prices for collectibles released by the popular franchise.
At Oudomsine’s sentencing last year, US District Judge Dudley H. Bowen called Oudomsine’s theft “an $85,000 insult” to a nation reeling from the pandemic.
“I feel stupid every time I say it: Pokémon cards,” Bowen said before sending Oudomsine to prison for three years.
Patrick Walsh’s quest to save his aerial advertising business began legitimately but quickly escalated into a massive scam.
Walsh operated a small group of cigar-shaped balloons that flew corporate logos over the packed venue.
Along with the purchase of Sweetheart Island, Walsh used the money for “luxury items,” an oil field in Texas and a down payment on a home in tony Jackson Hole, Wyoming.AP
In June 2017, one of them crashed and burned on live television at the US Open men’s golf tournament, one of the world’s premier sporting events.
“I was teeing off and I looked up and saw it on fire, and I felt sick to my stomach,” said professional golfer Jamie Lovemark, according to an Associated Press report. The pilot – the sole passenger – was seriously injured but survived, according to a National Transportation Safety Board investigation.
Following the crash, Walsh’s client began posting bail, his attorney wrote in a court filing.
To stay afloat, he obtained high-interest loans that also allowed him to expand his business.
By 2019, his company had sales of $16 million and had expanded into the Latin American and Asian markets.
Then the plague struck. “COVID-19 isn’t slowing down business, it’s killing it,” attorney Walsh wrote. He panicked.
Between March 2020 and January 2021 Walsh submitted more than 30 fraudulent applications for emergency epidemic assistance and received $7.8 million, according to the Department of Justice.
Although Walsh had followed the rules, his company qualified for only a “small subset” of those loans, federal prosecutors alleged.
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“His crime was horrific and the result of greed,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. They mentioned the purchase of Sweetheart Island, an undisclosed “luxury item,” an oil field in Texas and a down payment on a home in tony Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Walsh’s attorney said in court filings that he was not motivated by greed, but by desperation. Walsh was under enormous pressure to save his business and to support his large family, they wrote. He has 11 children.
US District Judge Allen C. Winsor disagreed with the argument.
This was not “a moment of weakness,” Winsor said in sentencing Walsh to more than five years in prison in January.
As part of his plea deal, Walsh agreed to return the $7.8 million he stole and sell Sweetheart Island, which was among his first purchases with stolen federal money, according to court records.
Prosecutors said Walsh used $90,000 of those funds to help finance the $116,000 purchase of the island. Florida real estate records show that the island was sold for $200,000 in late June.
Walsh’s lawyer said he did not buy the island as a “tropical paradise for entertainment” but as a real estate opportunity.
They did not explain how the businessman would turn the remote island into a profit center.
Withlacoochee Bay is scattered with small, similarly uninhabited islands.
The only indication that anyone has ever tried to develop Sweetheart Island are some old, worn cinder block walls that extend into the water.
There are still “For Sale” signs on weather-beaten, leafless trees that resemble scarecrows warning people to stay away.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
