Man Indicted for PPP Fraud, Using Funds for Cryptocurrency

A 35-year-old man has been indicted in North Carolina on charges he invented businesses to qualify for pandemic relief and robbed a bank, then spent the money buying cryptocurrency and paying bills.

Spenc’r Denard Rickerson, of Claremont, North Carolina, is facing bank robbery and wire fraud charges in the Western District of North Carolina, according to federal court documents unsealed on Tuesday, March 22. The case centers on allegations Rickerson filed numerous fake applications for loans during the COVID-19 pandemic and robbed a bank in nearby Newton.

Claremont, which is home to roughly 1,500 residents, is about 43 miles north of Charlotte. Prosecutors said he previously lived and worked in Mooresville, about 30 miles outside Charlotte.

Rickerson is in federal custody and could not be reached for comment on March 22, and information regarding his defense attorney was not immediately available.

According to the indictment, Rickerson worked for a company in Mooresville and lived in both Claremont and Mooresville from 2018 to 2020. He was placed on a leave of absence just before the pandemic hit in March 2020.

Rickerson received unemployment benefits on and off over the next year, prosecutors said.

Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act around the same time Rickerson stopped working. The package included billions of dollars in forgivable loans for small businesses known as the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, and an expansion of the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, or EIDL, program.

In June 2020, the government said, Rickerson submitted an application for an EIDL in which he claimed to run a company in the “business services” sector. He received a $53,400 loan as a result, which prosecutors said he spent largely on cash withdrawals and purchasing cryptocurrency.

Rickerson tried unsuccessfully to file multiple other EIDL applications in January 2021, prosecutors said, before he pivoted to the Paycheck Protection Program in March 2021.

According to the indictment, Rickerson claimed to run a business doing single-family home construction and said he needed the PPP funds to cover payroll expenses. The government subsequently gave him $20,833.

Just two days before he filed that application, prosecutors said Rickerson robbed a BB&T bank on Main Avenue in Newton.

The Justice Department didn’t say how much money he took during the bank robbery, but Rickerson was ultimately accused of stealing more than $74,200 in COVID-19 relief.

Court documents show he was arrested on Monday, March 21, and his next court appearance will be on March 25.

If convicted, Rickerson faces up to 20 years in federal prison on the wire fraud charge and 25 years for the bank robbery charge.

The indictment follows similar charges against a Charlotte woman, Nkhenge Shropshire, who is accused of filing at least least 10 fraudulent applications for EIDLs. A grand jury indicted Shropshire on Thursday, March 17 — the same day a federal jury in Charlotte convicted a local restaurateur and his son on charges they stole $1.7 million in pandemic relief from taxpayers.

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