KINGSLAND, Ga. — A South Georgia pastor and tax preparer is headed to prison for wire fraud after spending most of a fraudulently obtained COVID loan on a new car.
According to a news release, 45-year-old Mack Knight is facing up to 20 years in prison, substantial financial penalties, several years of probation... and he had to forfeit the Benz.
Court documents say Knight applied for EIDL loans on behalf of Camden County businesses. Those loan applications said Knight owned several businesses with hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue before the pandemic.
He received $149,000 from the Small Business Administration, and he used most of it on a Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan.
With his guilty plea, he's admitting those loan applications were fraudulent and that he sent fake records to the SBA, including tax documents and altered bank statements.
“COVID-19 disaster relief loans were issued by the government to help businesses struggling to survive during a pandemic, not to use for personal pleasures like Knight used them for,” said Philip Wislar, Acting Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta.
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721.
