ATLANTA — Olivia Ware of Oxford has been sentenced to prison for using a company she started to steal over $323,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

Ware, 63, a former mayoral candidate for the city of Conyers, was sentenced to two years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $323,100 in restitution to the Small Business Administration.  The sentence was imposed following Ware’s guilty plea to bank fraud on March 23, 2022.

U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said, “Ware shamelessly took advantage of a program designed to assist others in need during an unprecedented challenge to our nation.

“In her various public roles, including running for mayor, Ware asked people to trust in her ability to lead.  Unfortunately, what she has shown is a willingness to defraud taxpayers to enrich herself.”

Special Agent in Charge Katrina W. Berger, who oversees Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) operations in Georgia and Alabama, said, “It is shameful that Ware tried to profit from a bad situation. This scheme took desperately needed money away from people struggling during the COVID pandemic.

“This isn’t a victimless crime, every time a fraudster like this stole money, legitimate applicants were unable to get those funds to help themselves and their families.”

According to Buchanan, the charges and other information presented in court, the PPP was an emergency funding program created to assist small business owners and their employees during the coronavirus pandemic. PPP loans were fully guaranteed by the Small Business Administration but were underwritten and issued by authorized financial institutions. 

Before the pandemic, Ware formed a Georgia company called Let’s Talk About the Family Inc. (Let’s Talk), where she identified herself as its CEO. But the investigation revealed that Let’s Talk had not filed federal or state records indicating it paid any taxes or wages to any employees for several years prior to 2020. Yet in April 2020, Ware submitted a PPP loan application to an authorized PPP lender for Let’s Talk. 

The application attached fictitious and forged federal tax records purporting to show Let’s Talk was earning millions of dollars in revenue and had 54 employees prior to the pandemic. Ware also sent the bank a list of Let’s Talk’s 54 purported employees, identified by their names and other personal information, purporting that Let’s Talk paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salaries. However, many of the so-called employees, when contacted by federal agents, reported that they had never even heard of Ware or Let’s Talk.

As a result of the materially false information from Ware, a bank issued $323,100 in PPP funds to Let’s Talk. Ware then spent the fraudulently obtained PPP proceeds for her own benefit, including to buy a $24,000 swimming pool, furniture, and a multitude of other home improvement items. She also used stolen PPP funds to pay down the mortgage on her primary residence. 

This case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – Homeland Security Investigations.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Trevor C. Wilmot and Bernita B. Malloy prosecuted the case.

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.