Show-Me State Times

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp on Thursday sentenced a woman who fraudulently obtained $135,622 in pandemic loans for herself and helped others get hundreds of thousands more to 41 months in prison and ordered her to repay the money.

Edna E. McGowan-Baker engaged in a scheme between May 2020 and September 2021 to fraudulently obtain Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, which were intended to aid small businesses in paying and retaining employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

McGowan-Baker applied for seven PPP loans for five different companies in her name, only two of which were in operation. On the loan applications, McGowan-Baker falsified the companies’ payroll, number of employees, and annual income to inflate the amount of PPP loan money she could receive. She also submitted fraudulent tax forms with the applications. McGowan-Baker certified on the applications that she would use the loans for payroll and other authorized expenses but used the money for her own bills and to make personal purchases and payments to others. She also submitted fraudulent applications for PPP loan forgiveness, falsely stating that she used the loans for authorized expenses.

During Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Clow and an FBI special agent said McGowan-Baker also prepared and submitted fraudulent PPP loan applications for others in exchange for a cut of the loans that they received, taking “advantage of this once-in-a-generation crisis,” Clow said in a sentencing memo.

McGowan-Baker, 48, pleaded guilty in March in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of wire fraud and two counts of bank fraud. She was ordered Thursday to repay $149,194, representing the fraudulent loans she received, interest, and loan processing fees.

The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Clow is prosecuting the case.

Anyone with information about pandemic fraud should call the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or report via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.