A Denver man has been sentenced to two and half years in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining more than $1.2 million in pandemic-era relief funds, prosecutors said.
Steve Randall Howe, 74, was sentenced Oct. 14, roughly five months after he pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of money laundering. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Howe obtained $1,243,799.91 in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program from six different banks, based on false representations about the number of employees at his businesses and his average monthly payroll.
indicted last summer on 27 counts.
“Howe saw the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to defraud the government, depriving small businesses and families of the support they needed,” Scott Brown, the acting special agent in charge of the IRS’ criminal investigation field office in Phoenix, said in a statement.
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