Hopkinton Couple Arrested for Multiple Fraud Schemes

BOSTON - A Hopkinton couple has been arrested and charged in connection with separate schemes to defraud their workers’ compensation insurance carriers, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and their mortgage lender.    

Ronaldo Solano, 51, and Adriana Solano, 40, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston with one count each of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud. Ronaldo Solano was also charged with one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud. The defendants were arrested this morning and will appear in federal court in Boston at 3:30 p.m. today.

According to the indictment, between in or about 2012 and in or about 2020, Ronaldo and Adriana Solano — who operate a roofing and construction company based in Framingham under the names H&R Roofing & Construction Inc. and H&R Roofing & Siding Corp. — avoided more than $627,000 in workers’ compensation insurance premiums by underreporting their payroll and paying workers through a shell company.  

Separately, it is alleged that, between in or about 2021 and in or about 2022, Ronaldo and Adriana Solano submitted a loan application on behalf of H&R Roofing & Siding Corp. to the SBA under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Program, which provided for pandemic relief under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. In the application, Ronaldo and Adriana Solano allegedly requested $2 million in relief funds for working capital and other eligible business expenses. After receiving the relief funds, it is alleged that Ronaldo and Adriana transferred $1 million of the funds to a personal bank account they shared, from which they allegedly used more than $825,000 for a down payment towards a home in Hopkinton. It is alleged that Ronaldo and Adriana Solano borrowed another $770,500 from a mortgage lender to fund the purchase of the Hopkinton home but did not disclose to their lender that they were using EIDL funds for the down payment.  

The charge of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud provides for a sentence of no more than 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater. The charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud provides for a sentence of no more than 30 years in prison, five years of supervised release and a fine of $1 million or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater. The charges of mail fraud and wire fraud provide for a sentence of no more than 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy; Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; Christopher Algieri, Special Agent in Charge of the Northeast Field Office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General; and Harry Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Boston Field Office made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Insurance Fraud Bureau of Massachusetts. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen A. Kearney of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case.

The CARES Act is a federal law enacted on March 29, 2020, designed to provide emergency financial assistance to the millions of Americans who are suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. One source of relief provided by the CARES Act was the EIDL Program, through which the SBA offers loans that can only be used on certain permissible business expenses, which can include payment of fixed business debts, payroll, accounts payable, and other business-related expenses that could have been paid had the COVID-19 disaster not occurred.   

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.  Additionally, this case was investigated in connection with the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) Fraud Task Force, which was established to promote transparency and coordinate oversight of the federal government’s COVID-19 pandemic response. The PRAC brings together federal agents from 20 agency Inspector Generals to detect fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement in the more than $5 trillion in authorized COVID-19 funds.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form. 

The details contained in the indictment are allegations. The defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.