EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. – A former St. Louis Rams linebacker is among two others charged with engaging in a pandemic loan fraud scheme in connection with an East St. Louis construction company.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Illinois, Dana C. Howard, 52, co-owner of construction company Zoie, LLC, and former Illinois football legend, was charged alongside co-owner Richard Scott Myers, 63, and bookeeper Glenn Sunnquist, 53.
Reportedly, Howard and Myers obtained a loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration through the Paycheck Protection Program during the COVID-19 pandemic for their construction company and freight company, Zade Trucking.
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In April 2020, they received the PPP loan for over $1.4 million and asserted that more than $1.3 million of the fund would be used toward Zoie’s operational costs and to pay employees during the pandemic.
Instead, Howard and Myers are accused of using the million-dollar loan for their personal use and benefiting another business they owned.
The indictment against the three men alleges that in 2020 Howard and Myers filed for bankruptcy, indicating that little to no funds were left from the PPP loan, though $450,000 was still available to them through cashier’s checks.
Allegedly, Howard and Myers applied for another PPP loan for more than $1.4 million in January 2021 and falsely said they were not involved in bankrupty and sought forgiveness for the first loan. To support the loan forgiveness application, Sunnquist is accused of falsifying the business’s expense records and manipulating old invoices.
In September 2022, the SBA, which administered the loan, denied forgiveness of the loan.
A federal grand jury returned a 13-count indictment on Monday against the men. Howard, Myers, and Sunnquist are each facing one charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of wire fraud.
Howard is also facing additional charges for making a false statement, two counts of bankruptcy fraud, and three counts of willful failure to pay taxes.
A grand jury charged Myers with one count of monetary transaction in funds derived from unlawful activity and three counts of bankruptcy fraud.
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