OXFORD — A former West Point detective was convicted Wednesday by a federal jury for his part in a scheme to steal more than $11.2 million in pandemic relief funds.
A federal jury found Ramirez Ivy, of Columbus, and Felicia Smith, of Clarksdale, guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and of aiding and abetting wire fraud after a three-day trial in Oxford, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Mississippi.
Court documents and evidence presented at the trial showed Ivy and Smith conspired with Lakeith Faulkner, a former Small Business Administration employee, to submit fraudulent applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans that were meant to help small businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Each of the defendants would receive $200,000 once the fraudulent application was approved, a cut of which would go to Faulkner, the release said.
Ivy was the lead investigator at the West Point Police Department for a decade before he took a job at the 16th Circuit District Attorney’s Office in February 2023. He was arrested in July of the same year.
The original indictment, which included 11 other defendants, said Ivy was initially denied the EIDL when he first submitted a fraudulent application. But then he submitted additional documentation that overstated his actual business income, and he secured the loan. After he was issued the $200,000, he sent $45,000 to both Faulkner and Norman Beckwood, who would recruit people to submit the false applications.
Faulkner coordinated the submission of $11,249,800 in fraudulent applications while at the SBA. He and Beckwood both plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Faulkner was sentenced to 62 months in prison in December 2022, and Beckwood received a 62-month sentence in January, the press release reads.
In total, 30 people have been charged in connection with the scheme.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Clayton A. Dabbs and Parker King and Sam Wright of the Northern District of Mississippi are prosecuting the criminal case. The FBI, the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General, and the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration are investigating the case, the press release reads.
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