Scottsdale kitchen utensil designer accused of $3.7M PPP fraud
The Arizona Attorney General's Office announced on Tuesday that Randy Steven Kaas was indicted in connection to a series of fraud, forgery and theft involving federal Paycheck Protection Program loans.
A state grand jury indicted Kaas on Jan. 30 on 14 counts of fraudulent schemes and artifices, forgery, and theft, in Maricopa County Superior Court involving more than $3.7 million in federal PPP loans, according to the Attorney General's press release.
The PPP program was launched to help primarily small businesses stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic's economic collapse, with the added goal of trying to keep workers at those companies employed.
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Kaas, a former owner of several kitchen utensil shops and creator of POURfect Bowls, is accused of committing the crimes over the span of June 1, 2020, to June 1, 2021.
According to the Scottsdale Progress, Kaas also began a "satirical anti-Hillary Clinton" website that levied a portion of its earnings to back Republican candidates.
The website sports a series of caricatures and memes of Clinton, one of which shows her emerging from a toilet saying "See.. I'm Clean!" but also found throughout the website is the phrase "'Two-Tier Justice System' Advisory Council." A further dive into this term shows that, according to the Arizona Corporation Commission website, Kaas is listed as the organizer of a registered LLC of that same name.
Additionally, through the ProPublica PPP tracker, it shows that this LLC requested a nearly $130,000 PPP loan in May 2020, alongside multiple other businesses that Kaas is listed as a member of.
Of the LLCs that requested loans were Little AZ Shop, Pepe & Chip Store, PHX Store 480, PPCF, and Dyce LLC DBA POURfect products for amounts ranging from $20,000 to upwards of $800,000. Kaas' companies developed kitchen tools for better and cleaner measuring and pouring.
According to the Maricopa County Superior Court website, Kaas's trial is set for July 23.
No other information had been released.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Scottsdale business owner accused of PPP fraud indicted
