A Chicago Police sergeant has been charged in federal court docket with fraudulently acquiring greater than $41,000 in COVID-relief loans for a bakery that by no means existed.
Brandi Wright, 44, is charged with wire fraud for submitting two purposes for Paycheck Safety Program (PPP) loans in 2021 on behalf of a enterprise she claimed to personal. The bakery didn’t really exist, prosecutors stated. The purposes allegedly contained false statements about gross income, payroll wants, and operational bills. Every mortgage was for $20,831, bringing the whole to $41,662, which Wright allegedly used for different functions.
Wright earned $142,688 as a CPD sergeant final yr.
The prosecution comes as U.S. Legal professional Andrew Boutros has directed his workplace to take a contemporary have a look at COVID-19 fraud, significantly involving federal profit and entitlement applications.
The fees towards Wright have been filed three weeks after the Chicago Workplace of Inspector Basic launched its first-quarter report, which stated investigators had concluded 9 separate instances discovering Chicago cops fraudulently obtained forgivable PPP loans. The OIG doesn’t determine workers by title in public studies, however one case described within the quarterly report carefully matches the costs towards Wright: an officer who utilized for and acquired forgiveness on two federal PPP loans totaling $41,666.
CPD has preliminarily agreed with OIG suggestions that eight officers ought to be discharged and positioned on town’s do-not-hire checklist for PPP fraud. A ninth officer resigned whereas beneath investigation after allegedly mendacity about two fraudulent PPP loans totaling $41,666 obtained earlier than becoming a member of the division, submitting false filings to safe mortgage forgiveness, mendacity once more through the CPD hiring course of, after which failing to seem for a scheduled OIG interview. CPD agreed so as to add that officer to the do-not-hire checklist.
The OIG report additionally flagged a tenth metropolis employee, an aldermanic staffer, who allegedly obtained $20,833 by means of fraudulent PPP mortgage and mortgage forgiveness purposes. Investigators say the worker then filed a false police report claiming identification theft and submitted an identical false declare to the U.S. Small Enterprise Administration to cowl their tracks, earlier than mendacity to OIG investigators about their position in making use of for the mortgage.
OIG beneficial the alderman who supervises the staffer hearth the worker and bar them from future metropolis employment. The alderman missed the deadline to reply and, after they did reply, provided no indication of whether or not the employee could be fired. In a written response, the alderman stated they “take the issues outlined in your report critically,” including that “acceptable steps are being taken to make sure compliance with all relevant insurance policies and expectations shifting ahead.”
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