NEW: Cori Bush’s Husband Charged with Wire Fraud Related to Covid Relief Funds
Cortney Merritts, the husband of former Democrat Representative Cori Bush (MO) was indicted on wire fraud charges related to the Paycheck Protection Program during the Covid pandemic.
Ed Martin, the Acting US Attorney for DC, unsealed the indictment against Cortney Merritts on Thursday.
Merritts is accused of lying on his applications for Covid Paycheck Protection Program funds (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL).
Merritts was hit with 2 counts of wire fraud for falsifying applications to obtain more than $20,000 in loans.
“Cortney Merritts, 46, of St. Louis, Missouri, was charged today by federal indictment with two counts of wire fraud for allegedly filing 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 DOJ 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.
“On July 8, 2020, Merritts submitted another application to the SBA for an EIDL loan in the name of a sole proprietorship he called “Courtney Merritts.” In this 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. In addition to an EIDL loan, Merritts also 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,” the DOJ said.
The Justice Department was investigating Cori Bush’s 2024 reelection campaign after a government watchdog group, has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to investigate campaign payments of $62,359 from Bush to her husband Cortney Merritts for security services.
This is a separate investigation and the charges unsealed on Thursday are unrelated to the security services probe. The status of this investigation is unclear.
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