Two Men Sentenced for Government Loan Program Fraud

United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Shawn A. Prater, 49, of Omaha, Nebraska, and Trevor A. McNeil, 35, formerly of Omaha and currently of Fairburn, Georgia, were both sentenced on February 28, 2024, in federal court in Omaha by United States District Court Judge Brian C. Buescher, following the conviction of each for wire fraud.

Prater pled guilty in November 2023. He was sentenced to 5 years’ probation and ordered to pay $82,532.98 in restitution. As a condition of probation, Prater must pay at least $1,500 per month toward restitution.    

McNeil pled guilty in December 2023. He was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment and ordered to pay $402,070.60 in restitution. There is no parole in the federal system. After McNeil’s release from prison, he will begin a 3-year term of supervised release. 

During 2020 and 2021, Prater and McNeil, assisted by another person, submitted applications for Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (“EIDL”) program loans. Those loan programs were created or expanded by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act, which was designed to provide emergency financial assistance to the millions of Americans suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The applications misrepresented how much Prater’s and McNeil’s businesses had paid employees in past compensation and how much revenue McNeil’s business had received, resulting in significantly inflated loan amounts under the PPP and EIDL programs. The PPP applications were supported by false tax documents. The fraudulent applications on behalf of Prater sought loans totaling approximately $157,514.50, and he obtained $80,165. The fraudulent applications on behalf of McNeil sought loans totaling approximately $492,494, and he obtained $379,994. 

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.

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 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Small Business Administration, Office of Inspector General.