Maryland man sentenced to federal prison for COVID relief fund fraud

MARYLAND (DC News Now) — A judge sentenced a Gaithersburg man to three years in federal prison on Tuesday for fraud.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the District of Maryland announced that 54-year-old Harold Dotson was sentenced.

Dotson will also have to pay over $24.5 million in restitution and serve three years of supervised release following his prison sentence.

The USAO said that in the scheme, Dotson submitted over $24 million in fraudulent Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act — also known as the CARES Act — application. The act was passed in 2020 to help provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Court documents said that between April 2020 and January 2022, Dotson submitted several falsified loan applications for different COVID-19 relief loans.

At the time of these schemes, Dotson worked as the owner of H&M Tax Service LLC. The USAO said that he “used his accountant expertise to assist with preparing numerous false and fraudulent EIDL [Economic Injury Disaster Loan] and PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] applications for purported businesses that did not exist in any legitimate capacity.”

These applications included fake information about the false businesses’ number of employees, payroll costs and revenue. The USAO said that he also submitted false Internal Revenue Service tax forms for co-conspirators to submit alongside their falsified PPP applications.

In exchange for his help, Dotson got part of the proceeds — anywhere from 2 to 27 percent per loan. Officials said that he earned over $828,000 from his co-conspirators and used the money to gamble in Maryland and Las Vegas.