A Leesburg woman who was working as a loan official for the Small Business Administration has been convicted of fraud in connection with the distribution of government money aimed at providing COVID-19 economic relief.
Angela Chew, 60, has been found guilty in federal court of conspiracy to bribe a public official and commit wire fraud, three counts of bribery of a public official, and six counts of wire fraud. She faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
A jury returned the guilty verdict on Sept. 20 after hearing evidence that Chew, while working for the Small Business administration, conspired with three others to submit applications for COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDLs) containing false and fraudulent information in exchange for bribe payments.
The evidence showed that Chew used her position as a loan specialist for the Small Business Administration (SBA) to internally access those loan applications that she and a co-conspirator had submitted on behalf of others. Chew then took actions on the applications within the SBA’s internal processing system that moved the loans towards approval. Chew submitted a loan on behalf of a co-conspirator’s business that she knew was not active or operating at the time she submitted the loan. The loan was flagged as a duplicate by the SBA’s internal system, which stopped the application from progressing toward approval and funding. Chew then entered the SBA’s loan processing system, accessed the loan application, reactivated it, and manipulated the loan’s status multiple times in order to progress the application toward approval and funding in the amount of $150,000. In exchange, Chew received thousands of dollars in bribe payments from two of her co-conspirators. The evidence showed that Chew caused the funding of at least six EIDL applications, for a total loss of over $800,000. One of her co-conspirators was the former Seminole County Tax Collector , Joel Greenberg, who is now serving a sentence of 11 years in federal prison for sex trafficking a minor and fraud.
Chew’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Dec. 18.
Â
