St. Peters woman sentenced to 8 months in prison, ordered to repay $200K in pandemic loan scheme

ST. LOUIS (KMOV) -- A woman was sentenced to eight months in prison and ordered to pay more than $200,000 in restitution for pandemic loan fraud.

Trashunda M. Harrison of St. Peters pleaded guilty in June to three counts of wire fraud and one count of bank fraud in a scheme to steal money from the Paycheck Protection Program from June 2020 through April 2021. Harrison, 38, submitted nine applications for the program for three separate businesses and lied about the payroll, business income, and submitted fraudulent tax forms, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said.

The three businesses were The Quiet Space LLC, Blow LLC and StrutN 80s LLC. The only functional business Harrison had was StrutN 80s LLC, which had an income less than what she claimed in applying for loans. Prosecutors said she also falsely claimed to have used the first loan for payroll and other business expenses.

Harrison admitted in her plea deal that she used the loan money for shopping, dining, rent, cash withdrawals, and paying people who had nothing to do with her companies.

The Paycheck Protection Program was put in place to help small businesses and jobs during the pandemic. Harrison was ordered to repay a total of $204,095.