Two Baton Rouge women were indicted Monday for multiple financial crimes as part of a national Department of Justice investigation into the fraud of government healthcare benefits.
The investigation targeted 324 defendants, in total, across the country who had allegedly filed false applications for government unemployment or economic injury assistance.
In a release from the DOJ, the scale of this "Health Care Fraud Takedown" was described as unprecedented.
In Baton Rouge, two women were charged in the takedown for separate instances of filing fake applications to the Paycheck Protection Program.
The PPP was created by former president Biden's CARES ACT and was meant to help small businesses continue to pay their employees or hire back laid-off workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cody Hulbert, 41, was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and theft of government funds for her role in a scheme to submit fraudulent applications for unemployment insurance, to the PPP and to another COVID-relief program entitled the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program.
In total, Hubert and her co-conspirators stole tens of thousands of tax-payers dollars in their scheme, as alleged in her indictment.
The lion's share of the theft was in PPP applications, totaling $51,474 in stolen funds. Another $12,391 was sought in fraudulent EIDL applications, and $5,654 was stolen in unemployment insurance benefits.
Another defendant, Britney McCoy, 31, was charged with a count each of wire fraud and making false statements in a loan application in connection to a separate PPP scheme.
McCoy allegedly submitted false loan applications and other documents to lenders to obtain both funds and loan forgiveness through the PPP.
In total, she stole $22,884 in PPP funds, her indictment alleges.
Overall, the Department of Justice investigation identified over $14.6 billion in alleged false billings to government programs across 324 defendants.
