Cori Bush’s Husband Charged with Two Counts of Wire Fraud

Cortney Merritts, the husband of former U.S. Representative Cori Bush, has been indicted by the Department of Justice on two counts of wire fraud. He is accused of submitting fraudulent applications to obtain over $20,000 through the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). He did it under the guise of operating a business named ‘Cortney Merritts Security.’

This development follows a separate investigation in which Bush is accused of paying her husband $150,000 to serve as her “bodyguard.”

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Cortney Merritts, 46, of St. Louis, Missouri, was charged today by federal indictment with two counts of wire fraud for allegedly filing fraudulent applications with the Small Business Administration in 2020 and 2021 that allowed him to collect more than $20,000 in government funds under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

The indictment was announced by U.S. Attorney Edward Martin Jr., Special Agent in Charge Amaleka McCall Brathwaite of the Eastern Region for the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of the Inspector General, and FBI Special Agent in Charge Sean Ryan of the Washington Field Office Criminal and Cyber Division.

According to the indictment, on July 7, 2020, Merritts received an $8,500 EIDL loan from the SBA for a moving business he operated that he called Vetted Couriers. In the application he submitted for Vetted Couriers, Merritts certified that his business had six employees and had generated $32,000 in gross revenue between January 30, 2019 and January 30, 2020.

On July 8, 2020, Merritts submitted another application to the SBA for an EIDL loan in the name of a sole proprietorship he called “Cortney Merritts.”  In this EIDL application, Merritts fraudulently claimed to have a business that employed ten people and generated $53,000 in gross revenue between January 30, 2019 and January 30, 2020.  In addition to an EIDL loan, Merritts also requested an EIDL advance of up to $10,000 based on his false claim that he had 10 employees. The SBA rejected Merritts’ attempt to obtain additional EIDL funds after determining that his July 2020 application was nearly identical to the prior one he submitted. …

PowerInbox