Arizona man sentenced to prison for COVID-19 loan, tax fraud

TUCSON, AZ (AZFamily) — An Arizona man learned his punishment on Tuesday for filing fake tax returns and loan applications to get COVID-19 disaster relief, where he got nearly $1 million from the government.

Roy Layne from St. David was sentenced to four years in prison, followed by three years of probation. He was also told to pay $856,692.91

The 44-year-old filed paperwork with the IRS applied for a business license from Tucson, opened business bank accounts and filed phony employment-related tax returns. In April 2020, he filed a small business application with the federal government, claiming he had a “wholesale” business with 17 workers and an annual revenue of $500,000 per year.

In 2021, he lied on an application for the Paycheck Protection Program, which is intended to help those struggling financially because of the pandemic, claiming the same business had 31 employees and had $1.2 million in revenue. He ultimately received more than $300,000 in COVID-19-related relief, which he shouldn’t have gotten.

In 2022, Layne also used identity theft to file false claims of more than $7.4 million in false refunds with the IRS, which paid more than $590,000 to him.

Layne pleaded guilty to wire fraud and filing a false refund claim with the IRS in August.

St. David is about 50 miles southeast of Tucson and is also on the way to Bisbee.

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