A 29-year-old Texas man, Lee Price III,
has spent a government loan he collected to ease the effect of COVID-19 to
acquire a Lamborghini Urus.
Lee was jailed on Tuesday after US
authorities arrested him for using $1.6 million in pandemic aid to go on a
spending spree.
Lee, who got two separate loans from
the government under the Paycheck Protection Program to pay the employees he
never had, was charged with fraud by the Justice Department.
A statement by the Justice Department
said that Instead Lee spent the funds on lavish goods like a sports car and a
Rolex watch, as well as real estate.
He also got himself an F-350 pickup
truck, and thousands of dollars at Houston strip clubs, according to the
statement.
Price used the names of two companies:
Price Enterprises Holdings which allegedly received more than $900,000, and 713
Construction which got over $700,000.
The loans were for the
payment of his workers in the two companies but neither had employees and “the
individual listed as CEO on the 713 Construction loan application died in April
2020, a month before the application was submitted,” according to the complaint.
