A mother and daughter from Mount Vernon who defrauded the government in a $1.7 million kickback scheme will pay for their three-week crime spree with years in prison.
Alicia Ayers, 37, was sentenced to two years in prison and Andrea Ayers, 57, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years, in U.S. District Court, White Plains on April 26.
The women had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud for stealing Covid-19 relief funds from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program provided low-interest loans and payroll advances of $1,000 per employee to small businesses that were struggling during the pandemic.
The women recruited people to submit applications by depicting the program as free money for businesses, homeowners and renters. They used the recruits’ personal information to concoct more than 300 false applications that included made-up businesses.
Applicants who received payroll advances typically kicked back 25% to 50% of the money to the Ayerses, according to court records.
Alicia Ayers’ attorney, Deveraux L. Cannick, recommended a sentence of time served, two years of home confinement, and community service in a memo to U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Román.
He described his client as a single parent of two young children who has worked since age 14. “But for the conduct here,” the memo states, “she has lived an industrious, positive and productive life. ”
He noted that Alicia Ayers is “petrified” about how her children will be affected by her error in judgment. “Their lives hang in the balance,” the memo states.
Assistant prosecutors Courtney Heavey and Jeffrey C. Coffman recommended up to six-and-a-half years in prison.
They told Judge Román that the crime was brazen and based on “greed, not need.” She led applicants to believe that she was an accountant or a financial adviser. She texted one applicant that she was “laugh[ing] straight to the bank.”
She has paid no restitution, their sentencing letter states, despite claiming to have numerous jobs and business ventures and vacationing, while on supervised release, in Hawaii, New Orleans, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Florida and Atlanta.
Her refusal to provide a required financial statement and personal history to probation officials “is troubling,” according to the letter, “and foretells how she will not adjust well to supervised release.”
They called her request for two years of home confinement “far too inadequate to reflect the seriousness of her conduct.”
Her mother’s attorney, Royce Russell, also recommended two years of home confinement. She is a single mother, grandmother and caretaker for her ailing mother.
“Her aberrant conduct will haunt her for the rest of her life,” the sentencing memo states. It has brought great shame to the family name, given that her father was a pillar of the community as a Mount Vernon police officer, organizer of a youth outreach program and a co-founder of the African Brotherhood.
She had no previous criminal record, the memo notes. Her true character is reflected by her enlistment in the U.S. Air Force; work at the New York Stock Exchange, United States Postal Service, and hospitals; bartending and catering; and service as a peace officer and code enforcement officer in Mount Vernon.
“Because of her cooking and dedication to Mount Vernon,” the memo states, “she has become a staple in the community.”
Home confinement would allow her a second chance “while keeping the family unit intact.”
The prosecutors recommended up to six-and-a-half years in prison.
She had threatened an individual who filed a complaint with the SBA and the police for submitting an application without consent, according to the prosecutors. She bragged that she knew people who would help “hustle the sh-t out of this.”
“All the while,” the sentencing letter states, “Andrea Ayers continued working her job at the Mount Vernon Police Department, wholly unaffected by and indeed profiting off of the Covid-19 pandemic that was harming so many.”
The government does not oppose having the women serve their sentences consecutively for the sake of the other family members, the prosecutors noted in the daughter’s sentencing letter.
Judge Román also ordered the women to forfeit $1.7 million and to pay restitution to the SBA.
