The husband of former Rep. Cori Bush has been indicted for wire fraud after allegedly accepting $20,000 from the COVID-era Paycheck Protection Programs (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL).
Bush’s husband, Cortney Merritts, filed “fraudulent applications with the Small Business Administration in 2020 and 2021 that allowed him to collect more than $20,000 in government funds under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP),” the Justice Department announced.
“According to the indictment, on July 7, 2020, Merritts received an $8,500 EIDL loan from the SBA for a moving business he operated that he called Vetted Couriers. In the application he submitted for Vetted Couriers, Merritts certified that his business had six employees and had generated $32,000 in gross revenue between January 30, 2019 and January 30, 2020,” the DOJ said. In another EIDL application, Merritts “fraudulently claimed to have a business that employed ten people and generated $53,000 in gross revenue between January 30, 2019 and January 30, 2020” and “requested an EIDL advance of up to $10,000 based on his false claim that he had 10 employees. The SBA rejected Merritts’ attempt to obtain additional EIDL funds after determining that his July 2020 application was nearly identical to the prior one he submitted.”
Merritts further fraudulently claimed in a PPP application that he had created a business in 2020 that generated $128,000 in gross income. He “received a $20,832 PPP loan” and “used the proceeds for his personal benefit and enjoyment.” He submitted a loan forgiveness application in 2022 where he “falsely claimed that this business had 10 employees at the time of the PPP loan, and that he spent the $20,832 on payroll costs.”
Bush’s husband has been charged with two counts of wire fraud.
