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| REUTERS |
A “military and security consulting” firm that never delivered on its promise to ship COVID masks to New York at the peak of the pandemic is being sued by the city to pay back the flubbed $15 million contract.
The Colorado-based firm is so desperate to hold on to the partially prepaid contract cash, it even changed its business name – just days after a ruling against them last September – in an attempt to defraud the city and hide their assets, the suit contents.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration inked a $15 million contract with the consulting and logistics firm – then calling itself Siege International – on April 3, 2020, during the dark days of the pandemic when COVID-19 was killing thousands.
The agreement was for the company to deliver five million N95 respirator masks by May 1, and half of the contract — roughly $7.5 million — was prepaid to help expedite the badly-needed supplies for first responders and medical workers.
But Siege missed its first contractual deadline for the first one million. And then the next one for the full five million, too, the Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit charges.
Only 800,000 masks ever made it to the Big Apple, leaving nearly 1.7 million masks paid for but missing in action, according to the court documents.
But Siege has repeatedly refused to return the taxpayer money back to the East Coast.
The city even offered to avoid legal pursuits and to simply terminate the failed contract in July 2020, if the firm, which boasts “asset protection” as a service on its website, would just return the money paid for the masks that were never delivered – a total of $5,112,337.20 in taxpayer dollars.
“Siege International declined this offer,” the suit reads. --->READ MORE HERE
The U.S. Small Business Administration was the lifeline for millions of companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, guaranteeing zero-interest loans and forgiving them if the money was used for payroll and other overhead.
Now, a former SBA employee in Miami has been charged with ripping off the very agency that was tasked with doling out about $800 billion in emergency benefits nationwide after the coronavirus swept the nation in March 2020.
Malaina Chapman may be the first ex-SBA employee in the country to be charged with bilking the agency responsible for the Paycheck Protection Program and other pandemic loan programs, according to federal authorities. Chapman, 37, of Hialeah, advertised her side businesses in real estate and credit services on her Instagram account under the handle, upscale_yourhomegirl.
Chapman was arrested Wednesday morning and made her first appearance in federal court. A magistrate judge allowed Chapman to be released on a $550,000 bond that will require her to make a deposit of $5,000.
However, Judge Edwin Torres refused her request for a court-appointed attorney after Chapman admitted that she owned three homes in Miami-Dade County with her brother that they inherited from their mother. She said the total value of the three single-family homes was $1.16 million, with only one outstanding mortgage of $100,000.
“I don’t think she qualifies” for a court-appointed defense lawyer, Torres said, suggesting that she could borrow money based on the equity of her three homes and use it to pay for an attorney.
Federal prosecutor Dan Bernstein urged the judge to require her to show that if she’s allowed to borrow money under this scenario, it can only be used for her legal defense. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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