Ex Miami-Dade cop sentenced for COVID fraud. How much money will he have to pay back?
An ex-Miami-Dade police officer who revived a dormant company to use in a COVID-19 relief loan scam was sentenced to federal prison and ordered to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars of funds he illegally obtained.
Samuel Harris Jr., 43, was sentenced Monday to four months in prison, followed by four months of home detention, after he pleaded guilty in June to a count of wire fraud. He had been with the department nearly five years as a uniformed patrol officer when he resigned weeks before he was charged.
In June 2020, shortly after the pandemic began and when U.S. hospitals were struggling to handle the large influx of COVID patients prior to a vaccine, Harris reinstated Oregen Digital Inc., a company he had incorporated about five years before, records show. According to investigators, he also opened a bank account in the name of Oregen, with him as the sole signatory.
On June 29, Harris applied for a fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan, falsely claiming on an Internal Revenue Service form that Oregen had 10 employees and a monthly payroll of over $50,000. As a result, he obtained a $125,579 PPP loan from a Georgia-based lender.
READ MORE: A Miami-Dade police officer has pleaded guilty to a COVID-19 relief loan fraud
More money from another loan program
But his criminal activities didn’t stop there, investigators said.
On June 30, Harris submitted a fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan application to the U.S. Small Business Administration, falsely claiming Oregen had 10 employees and a gross revenue of over $859,000 in 12 months. As a result, he received an EIDL loan of $149,000 and a $10,000 advance, which didn’t have to be repaid.
Harris resigned from the Miami-Dade Police Department on April 13, 2023, according to the agency. He was charged on May 3 and pleaded guilty on June 30, court records show.
“It infuriates me to learn that one of my officers was arrested for fraud,” former Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez III said at the time. “The action of this officer not only violated the trust of the community, but took advantage of a system that was in place to help businesses in need due to COVID-19.”
At Monday’s sentencing, Senior U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. also ordered that Harris serve three years of supervised release, including the four months in home detention, after he completes his prison term, and that he pay $285,479 in restitution.
Harris must surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prisons no later than noon Feb. 13.
South Florida has led the financial crime wave that followed Congress’ passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March 2020, designed to provide emergency financial assistance to the millions of Americans who were suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
About 200 South Floridians have been charged with defrauding CARES’ PPP program, submitting hundreds of millions of dollars in applications deemed bogus by federal prosecutors.
Miami Herald staff writer David J. Neal contributed to this report.
