Feds Sentence Houston Man To 9 Years In Prison For $1.6M PPP Loan Fraud, Purchased Lamborghini, Binged On Strip Clubs. Photo by Kevin Bhagat on Unsplash
A Houston man has been sentenced to 9 years and 2 months in prison for fraudulently obtaining over $1.6 million in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), much of which he spent on lavish purchases – including a Lamborghini and trips to the strip club.
Lee Price III, 30, pled guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in September, Clicks2Houston reported. Price received the money in 2020 after submitting applications to the Small Business Association for three businesses: 713 Construction LLC, Price Enterprises Holdings LLC, and Price Logistic Services LLC.
On the applications, Price applied for over $2.6 million and alleged he had 50 employees at Price Enterprises as well as a monthly payroll of $375,000. The employees didn’t exist.
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Instead, Price spent the money as follows: $233,000 on a 2019 Lamborghini Urus, $100,000 to lease office space, $85,000 on a Ford F-350, approximately $14,000 on Rolex watch, $2,500 at night clubs, a $2,000 trip to a Houston-area strip club, $700 at a liquor store, etc.
The Department of Justice seized over $700,000 of the funds after becoming aware of Price’s fraud.
“Mr. Price hopes that others will learn from his reckoning that there is no easy money,” Price’s attorney, Tom Berg, told The Washington Post in an email. “He has the balance of the 110-month sentence to reflect, repent and rebuild his misspent life.”
This isn’t the first time Price has been in trouble with the law. He was also convicted of forgery in 2010 and robbery in 2011, according to Complex.
