A scamming Florida pastor and son were arrested after allegedly fraudulently obtaining $8 million in covid relief funds and then attempting to purchase a luxury home near Disney World.
Evan Edwards and his son, Josh Edwards, were arrested Wednesday morning at their home in New Smyrna Beach, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The arrests come five months after an NBC News report raised questions over why the father-son duo hadn’t been charged in the alleged scam, which the feds first identified in December 2020.
NBC reports that the Edwards’ case dates back to April 2020, when Josh applied for a PPP loan to cover payroll, rent and utilities for his family’s organization, ASLAN International Ministry. The loan application had 86 employees listed and claimed a monthly payroll of $2.7 million. They were later approved for an $8.4 million loan. As the feds began to investigate, they uncovered lots of sketchy practices. The ministry’s website had inactive donation links and plagiarized text from other religious websites, plus workers at neighboring businesses claimed they never saw anyone inside. What makes matters even worse, the name of the person listed on the loan application as the ministry’s accountant suffered from dementia and hadn’t done any work for the organization since 2017, according to the man’s son, per federal investigators.
The feds also later discovered, in actuality, ASLAN’s actual monthly payroll expenses were “significantly lower, or entirely nonexistent.” What’s more, investigators say the Edwardses planned to use $868,250 of the fraudulently obtained money for a down payment on $3.5 million, 4,700-square-foot home in Disney World’s exclusive Golden Oak Neighborhood.
The two men, who are originally from Canada, are facing six charges, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and visa fraud.
