SALINA —Federal authorities seized property of a Salina Speedway promoter who allegedly used false information to obtain funding from a federal pandemic relief program.
According to a criminal complaint filed in August and a supporting affidavit, Tommy D. Hendrickson, whose LinkedIn profile lists him as a promoter of the Salina Speedway and was employed as a paramedic at Life Touch EMS, an ambulance service in Salina, Kansas and Bill R. Nissen a resident of Douglas County, Kansas worked together to apply for and receive over $230,000 in a fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan.
According to an FBI agent statement in the affidavit, "I have probable cause to believe that Hendrickson and Nissen, personally and through, two companies they formed including SSW Promotions, 2841 South Burma Road, Salina and Offender Monitoring Services, created and implemented a scheme to defraud the United States Government and SBA of approximately $237, 897 or wire fraud.
"Further, the agent wrote in the affidavit, "I have probable cause to believe that by transferring and withdrawing funds in transactions greater than $10,000.00 that contained the proceeds of wire fraud, Hendrickson engaged in financial transactions that were in violation of 18 U.S.C. $ 1957(a) or money laundering."
In the loan application, Nissen stated the purpose of the loan was to fund payroll, utilities, and covered operations expenditures.
The Kansas Department of Labor and did not report any wages for any employee of the two organizations for 2017 -2020, according to affidavit.
The funds derived from the wire fraud offenses, according to the affidavit were used to purchase a $48,000 John Deere motor grader and a new $19,000 Polaris.
Nissen, according to affidavit, also completed and submitted, electronically, a PPP Loan Forgiveness Application. As part of the submission of the application, Nissen certified the two companies had complied with all requirements in the PPP Rules, including rules related to eligible uses of PPP loan proceeds.
In August of 2021, the SBA loan was forgiven in its entirety.
After an investigation, in June 2023, the FBI seized the John Deere motor grader and the Polaris in Salina.
The U.S. Small Business Administration inspector general's report in June indicated more than $200 billion may have been stolen nationwide from two large COVID-19 relief initiatives, according to new estimates from a federal watchdog investigating federally funded programs that helped small businesses survive the worst public health crisis in more than a hundred years.
The numbers issued by the U.S. Small Business Administration inspector general are much greater than the office's previous projections and underscore how vulnerable the Paycheck Protection and COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs were to fraudsters, particularly during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Federal officials continue to investigate Hendrickson and Nissen.