University City Business Owner Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison for Pandemic, Bank Fraud

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark on Friday sentenced a University City, Missouri business owner to 30 months in prison and ordered him to repay $650,000 that he reaped from bank and pandemic-related fraud.

Le Mell Harlston, 36, used the Social Security number assigned to a minor from the Kansas City, Missouri area and a number that had not been assigned to anyone to apply for loans and lines of credit at credit unions and banks.

After Harlston’s indictment in January of 2021, investigators learned that he had applied for a series of Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans offered under the CARES Act. Those loans were intended to help business owners negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Harlston applied for EIDL funding for four companies registered to him in July 2020 but used another minor’s Social Security number on the application.

Harlston, using his own Social Security number, also received multiple PPP loans in February 2021 after certifying that he was only applying for one loan. He applied for two PPP loans after being arraigned in federal court and lied when asked on the applications whether he was under indictment.

In all, Harlston caused a loss of $653,332, including $551,830 in CARES Act funds.

Harlston pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in August to five counts of bank fraud and nine counts of misuse of a Social Security number.

“The sentence holds Mr. Harlston accountable for his criminal acts of misusing multiple Social Security numbers to defraud several financial institutions and creditors, as well as to fraudulently obtain CARES Act funds. My office will continue working with our law enforcement partners to protect the integrity of Social Security numbers,” said Gail S. Ennis, Inspector General for the Social Security Administration.  

U.S. Attorney Sayler Fleming said, “This case is one of almost four dozen pandemic fraud-related cases that are being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s office. We are continuing to aggressively prosecute these cases. Anyone with information about pandemic fraud should call the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or report via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.”

The Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General and Small Business Administration Office of the Inspector General investigated this case.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Klocke prosecuted the case.