Jabari Edwards and Antwann Richardson have asked a federal judge to dismiss the criminal charges against them, drawing a ferocious response from prosecutors.

Edwards and his business partner, Richardson, were arrested in June for multiple counts related to misusing more than $2 million in Paycheck Protection Plan and Economic Injury Disaster Loan program loans. The loan programs were intended to help maintain employment rates and assist businesses recovering from hardships as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The FBI, as well as other state and federal agencies, raided J5’s headquarters in downtown Columbus on June 16.

Edwards and Richardson were charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. Edwards was also charged with making false statements.

The motion to dismiss the criminal charges against Edwards and Richardson was filed by attorney L.N. Chandler Rogers on Nov. 7. Rogers argues the indictment, handed down in June, “…lacks specificity as to the nature of the crimes allegedly committed and fails, in many respects, to state a criminal offense.”

Rogers also filed a 17-page separate document laying out how, exactly, the indictment was not specific and did not state any crimes.

PPP loans
At the center of the case is Edwards’ request for federal COVID relief funds for North Atlantic Security, a company he owned and that Richardson managed. Edwards applied for a PPP loan on Jan. 10, 2021, and the company was sold in early March.

In the motion for dismissal, Rogers argues that the loan application was not fraudulent because “… it is impossible … for Edwards to have made false and fraudulent misrepresentations about NAS’s viability and ongoing business prospectively to March 4, 2021, some two months into the future.”

Edwards “could not have known, as of Jan. 10, 2021, that NAS ‘had ceased to do business on March 4, 2021,’” he wrote.

The government took a rather different view in its response, filed Thursday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip M. Levy pointed out the indictment clearly states that Edwards and Richardson “knew they intended to sell NAS’s assets before they applied for the PPP loan.”

“They either knew NAS was about to close or knew that NAS was closed, and therefore knew that the funds they applied for and obtained … would not be used in the way they promised to use them,” Levy wrote.

He also alleged it was Richardson, not Edwards, who originally wanted to go ahead with the application.

“… The government expects the evidence at trial to show Edwards initially had doubts about applying for the funds, though Richardson was in favor of applying,” Levy wrote. “Ultimately, of course, (they) did apply for and misuse the majority of funds, as charged in the indictment.”

Rogers, in his motion to dismiss, wrote “the allegations presuppose that Edwards and his company had no income other than that received from PPP loan funds” and so the allegedly illegal expenditures were solely paid for using loan money. Bank records show money from other sources moving in and out of J5’s accounts.

Levy, writing for the government, contends the other money coming in was insufficient to keep Edwards’ raft of companies afloat.

“Though the defendants give the court the impression that there was significant ‘clean’ money coming into the accounts to cover expenses, the government expects the evidence at trial to show that the defendants needed the nearly $2 million in NAS loan funds to keep their other businesses afloat,” he wrote.

EIDL loans
The indictment alleges that Edwards applied for the EIDL loans on NAS’s behalf on Oct. 20, 2021, and that he claimed there had been “no substantial adverse change” in the company’s financial condition, in spite of the fact it had been closed since March.

Rogers argues that the company was not closed but was just shedding unprofitable contracts as part of a restructuring.

“It is the government’s burden to identify how NAS unloading bad security guard contracts was a ‘substantial adverse change,’” he wrote.

Levy counters by arguing Edwards and Richardson knew they shouldn’t get the money in the first place.

“The bottom line is that the defendants knew NAS was not eligible for the $1,850,000 in additional EIDL loan money, misrepresented NAS’s status to the (Small Business Administration), received the loan money to which it was not entitled and spent it on items not related to NAS,” he wrote.

Trying the case in motions
The government also argued that Edwards and Richardson were trying to use the motion to dismiss as a back-door trial, rather than simply waiting for the real one to start.

The arguments in the motion “are appropriate for trial, but not for a motion to dismiss,” Levy wrote.

Levy also takes aim at Edwards and Richardson’s attempt to paint the indictment as vague.

“The defendants make a number of arguments … most of them factual, but do not precisely explain how the indictment fails to inform them of the crimes charged,” he wrote. “In fact, (they) appear to have a good grasp of the charges against them because they attached to the motion exhibits they argue prove their innocence to the charges.”

This is the second time Richards and Edwards have attempted to push back on prosecutors’ case. Earlier this year attorney Wilbur O. Colom, representing Edwards’ companies, asked that forfeitures on bank accounts and real property, including Court Square Towers, be dismissed.

That request was denied earlier this month.

Trial is set for Jan. 23, 2023, at the federal courthouse in Oxford. A judge will consider the defendants’ motion and prosecutors’ response before ruling.

Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.

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