# Baltimore County Businessman Sentenced to Prison for Fraudulently Obtaining More Than $1.3 Million in COVID-19 CARES Act Loans (David Epstein)

**Source:** DOJ, U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Maryland
**Date:** Thursday, May 8, 2025
**URL:** https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/baltimore-county-businessman-sentenced-prison-fraudulently-obtaining-more-13-million
**Retrieved:** 2026-06-12
**Lenders named:** Cross River Bank, Bluevine, Celtic Bank (+ SBA)
**Disposition:** Sentenced — 1 year + 1 day prison, 12 months home incarceration

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U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett sentenced David Epstein, 46, of Owings Mills, Maryland, to one year and one day in federal prison and 12 months of home incarceration, in connection with his guilty plea to one count of wire fraud for submitting fraudulent CARES Act loan applications.

According to his plea agreement and other court documents, beginning in May 2020 and continuing through February 2021, Epstein engaged in a scheme to defraud financial institutions, **including Cross River Bank, Bluevine, Celtic Bank, and the SBA**, to obtain fraudulent loans for his business PEI Staffing (PEI) under the PPP and EIDL programs.

On April 30, 2020, Epstein submitted a false PPP loan application in the name of PEI seeking approximately $1,307,170. The application contained false statements: it claimed PEI employed 382 workers but only 79 were listed on an IRS Form 941 for Q2 2020; it misstated wages and use of funds; and Epstein falsely stated he had no common management with other businesses (he managed both PEI and Stafquik). In February 2020 he submitted a fictitious SunTrust Bank statement claiming the account belonged to PEI when it was connected to Stafquik. Loan proceeds were used on a Mercedes-Benz GT43C4, ~$138,522 of home renovations including a pool, a $100,000 settlement, and other personal expenses.

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*Captured verbatim (body) from justice.gov for the Pandemic Darlings archive.*

**Verification note:** Confirms the NLP lender tag (Cross River|Celtic) in `prosecutions_db_v2.csv` is accurate. Critically, the lenders are named as the **defrauded conduits/victims**, not perpetrators — Epstein fabricated employee counts and bank statements. The prosecution touches Cross River and Celtic only because the fraudster routed his fraudulent application through them. This is precisely why "prosecutions naming a lender" ≠ lender culpability in `prosecutions_by_lender.csv`.