Maurice Fayne

“Fayne planned to use the PPP program as a cover for his long-running Ponzi scheme,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine in a news release Wednesday. “The funds the program supplies serve as a lifeline to many businesses desperately trying to stay afloat during the pandemic, and unfortunately his fraud helped deplete those precious dollars.” Erskine said from March 2013 through May 2020, Fayne ran a multistate Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 20 people who invested in his trucking business. Instead of using investors’ money to operate the business, he used the funds to pay personal debts and expenses and to fund an extravagant lifestyle, Erskine said. During the scheme, Fayne spent more than $5 million at a casino in Oklahoma, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District...