Stay Tuned | Alabama | Covid-19 Fraud

Lured by easy money and shorter prison sentences, drug dealers are increasingly turning to committing government fraud as a way to make money. Adrian Lacey is one of them. The beginning of his multiple federal prison stays begins in 2002 when he was sentenced to five years in prison for distribution of crack cocaine. In 2012, a judge sentenced him to three years and 10 months in prison for mail fraud, due to a scheme to defraud the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which was set up to compensate victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Then he was later sentenced for his role in a conspiracy to use stolen identities to file fraudulent state and federal income tax returns. U.S. Bureau of Prison records indicate that Adrian Lacey is currently not in federal custody…but stay tuned. The sentence just handed down on January 30, 2025, means Lacey will once again be behind bars, this time for a COVID-19 loan fraud scheme that he orchestrated while being incarcerated for his prior crimes.

Behind prison doors, Lacey used a smuggled cell phone to obtain stolen identities, including Social Security Numbers. He then filed for $2 million worth of fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications, without the victim’s knowledge or consent. The proceeds were directed to bank accounts that his sister had access to. The government paid $400,000 before stopping payments after a fraud alert indicated that multiple loans shared the same IP addresses and other data.

Lacey has been  sentenced to almost 16 years in prison, but it won’t be official until they figure out exactly how much he owes in restitution…estimated right now to be more than $379,000.

Excellent job by the Small Business Association Inspector General in this case.

Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Alabama man convicted of $379,000 COVID-19 loan fraud while he was in federal prison” published by AL.com on January 30, 2025.

An Alabama man who committed COVID-19 loan fraud to the tune of $379,000 while he was a federal prison inmate was sentenced Thursday to nearly 16 years in a federal lockup.

Adrian Lacey, 46, of Semmes, was sentenced to 186 months in federal prison after being convicted in federal court in Mobile in May of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Lacey’s conviction came the same month he was due to be released from the federal prison system.