PPP fraud investigation finds Cook County workers ripped off $1.2 million from pandemic relief program

Cook County employees are suspected of stealing more than $1.2 million from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program created in 2020 to bail out struggling businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Friday, interim Cook County Inspector General Steven Cyranoski released a report for the fourth quarter of 2023 detailing $300,000 of PPP fraud involving seven health department employees and a facilities management worker.

In prior quarterly reports since July 2022, Cyranoski has said he suspected at least 31 other county workers had committed PPP fraud. The fraud documented in all of his reports adds up to more than $1.2 million.

In his latest report, Cyranoski said a county health worker got four loans totaling about $79,000 after she falsely told the Small Business Administration she ran interior-design and hair-braiding businesses.

The loans were forgiven, meaning they didn’t have to be repaid. The woman resigned the night before she was supposed to meet with the inspector general’s office. 

Cyranoski also said a facilities management worker applied for a PPP loan for a masonry contracting business, which he really did operate on the side. The problem was that he was ineligible to receive his $26,000 loan. The man lied that his company took in gross receipts of $80,000 in 2020 when he really got only $5,000, the inspector general’s report said.

Most of the county workers Cyranoski found to have engaged in PPP fraud had failed to report their purported secondary employment to the county as required. Most have resigned, though some have been fired.

Cyranoski has recommended they be placed on a list barring them from being hired again by the county. Cyranoski’s reports don’t name the workers.

Across the country, and particularly in Cook County, the Paycheck Protection Program was riddled with corruption, with billions of dollars stolen in fraudulent claims in 2020 and 2021, authorities say.

In Chicago, City Hall’s inspector general is continuing to investigate whether hundreds of city employees, including cops and firefighters, ripped off the program.

Few public employees in Chicago suspected of Paycheck Protection Program fraud have faced criminal charges. One noteworthy exception was a federal indictment against two cops accused of stealing more than $2 million from the program. One of the officers retired two weeks before he was charged last year.