A St. Louis-area contractor who fraudulently obtained $1.7 million in pandemic loans was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to repay the money.
Coretta “Cory” Elliott owned and operated CMT LLC, a contractor that provided commercial construction, demolition, roofing, landscaping and remediation services. CMT also did business as CMT Roofing LLC.
According to the charges brought against her, Elliott fraudulently obtained a first draw Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan of $875,000 for CMT Roofing in 2020 and a second draw loan of $833,333 in 2021 by falsely certifying that the loans would be used for business-related purposes. She also inflated her company’s monthly payroll to get larger loans.
Elliott later received forgiveness of the loans by falsely claiming in two applications that she used the money for payroll and other legitimate business expenses.
Elliott diverted $200,000 into her investment account and used a total of $559,455 to pay dues owed by her companies to various construction unions. She used more of the PPP loan money for other personal purposes.
Elliott pleaded guilty in November in US District Court to two counts of wire fraud.
“We will never know whether Coretta Elliott’s business would have legitimately qualified for disaster relief funds. However, by submitting substantial false information across multiple applications, she fraudulently secured $1.7 million in funds,” said Special Agent in Charge Chris Crocker of the FBI St. Louis Division. “Her deceit not only led to her unlawfully obtaining far more than she may have otherwise been entitled to, but it also gave her an unfair competitive advantage over other local contractors. This type of criminal conduct, driven by greed, undermines the integrity of the disaster relief system and harms those who play by the rules.”
