SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) — A Sacramento man was sentenced to over three years in prison for defrauding lenders and embezzling from a local business for a total of nearly $2 million, the Department of Justice said.
Aaron Ashcraft, 42, worked for a street sweeping company in Sacramento, and he embezzled money from the business for about three years, according to the DOJ. He reportedly used his position as a chief financial officer to access the business’s money for personal expenses.
The DOJ said he embezzled around $780,000 from the business between September 2017 and June 2020.
A month before he stopped embezzling money, he began to file for COVID-19 relief loans to lenders approved by the Small Business Administration. The DOJ said he filed at least seven fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan applications from May 2020 to April 2021.
He reportedly created false records to support his loan applications, including IRS forms and payroll documents. He requested over $1.2 million but received about $920,000 through the loans.
According to the DOJ, he also defrauded a state on the East Coast. The Maine Department of Labor gave him over $58,000 in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. He filed the false claim in July 2020, the DOJ said.
In total, he received about $1.8 million. He will have to pay restitution as part of his sentence.
- $919,598 to three SBA-approved lenders
- $45,979 to the SBA
- $779,832 to his former employer
- $58,050 to the Maine Department of Labor
