Local Tea Party leader sent to prison for stealing COVID relief funds
A man once at the helm of conservative Tea Party politics in Monroe County is being sent to federal prison after he pleaded guilty last week to fraudulently receiving $400,000 from a business and pandemic relief funds.
Robert K. Hall II, 73, whose most recent address was in Bedford, was sentenced by a U.S District Court judge in Evansville to 41 months behind bars. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
According to federal court documents, a 15-month scheme that started in September 2019 and lasted through December 2020 attempted to defraud multiple businesses, six states and the federal Small Business Administration of a total of $669,000.
Some of the transactions were blocked, so not all of the money was received. Sixty-four transfers of COVID-19 emergency funds are listed in the May 2021 grand jury indictment against Hall.
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They range from a $649 unemployment benefit payment from the State of Colorado to $149,900 from the Small Business Administration.
In September 2019, Hall established a bogus business called B&K Electric, a Secret Service investigation revealed.
He then diverted money received through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to his own accounts at Crane Federal Credit Union, Hoosier Hills Credit Union, German American Bank, Bedford Savings Bank, Home Bank and JP Morgan Chase Bank.
He kept 20% of the proceeds from the emergency government funding before funneling the rest to three people alleged to have conspired with him to defraud the government, court records said. They are named in the indictment by initials only: C.S., D.C. and D.M.
The wire fraud allegations stem from Hall converting $35,500 of the ill-gotten funds to Bitcoin digital currency using bank machines in southern Indiana.
He was arrested on a federal warrant Aug. 25, 2021, and booked into the Lawrence County Jail. His guilty pleas came more than two years later.
In 2016, Hall was one of five Republicans seeking Indiana's 9th Congressional seat vacated by Todd Young. The national Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund endorsed Hall, calling him "a constitutional conservative who believes Washington elites have been waging war on Americans who live in ‘fly-over’ states."
Trey Hollingsworth won that primary election. Hall came in fifth with 8,036 votes, about 7% of the total.
An excerpt from a U.S. attorney's office news release about the case provides an example of what happened and how the federal money was laundered.
"In September 2019, an employee of Victim Business 1 received a fraudulent email purporting to be a recognized vendor that the business previously worked with. The purported vendor explained that due to an audit involving its primary bank account, future payments should be made to a different account. The account that was named belonged to Hall under the guise of an electric company. This fraudulent email caused Business 1 to unknowingly transfer $113,550 into Hall’s personal account."
After his release from prison, Hall will be on probation for three years.
“This defendant played a critical role in multiple fraud schemes, including stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from vital relief programs created to support individuals and businesses in the midst of a global pandemic,” Zachary A. Myers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, said in the news release.
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Robert Hall sentenced to prison for wire fraud, money laundering
