Huntingdon County Woman Pleads Guilty To Aiding Others In Stealing Pandemic Relief Funds

HARRISBURG – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Linda Grubb, age 74, of Hesston, Pennsylvania, pled guilty on July 21, 2021, to wire fraud for her role in a pandemic relief funds fraud scheme.

According to Acting United States Attorney Bruce D. Brandler, Grubb and her coconspirators manipulated a variety of pandemic relief programs to fraudulently obtain over $400,000. Specifically, the coconspirators made applications for pandemic related small business loans and pandemic unemployment assistance, sometimes using stolen identifying information. The loans and unemployment payments were deposited into Grubb’s bank account in Huntingdon County. Grubb allowed her bank account to be used and then assisted her coconspirators by wiring the funds to bank accounts they identified.

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.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael A. Consiglio is prosecuting the case.

A sentence following a finding of guilt is imposed by the Judge after consideration of the applicable federal sentencing statutes and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

The maximum penalty under federal law for this offense is twenty years of imprisonment, a term of supervised release following imprisonment, and a fine. Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the Judge is also required to consider and weigh a number of factors, including the nature, circumstances and seriousness of the offense; the history and characteristics of the defendant; and the need to punish the defendant, protect the public and provide for the defendant's educational, vocational and medical needs. For these reasons, the statutory maximum penalty for the offense is not an accurate indicator of the potential sentence for a specific defendant.

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