An Alexandria man received a sentence of just one day behind bars for his role in a $4 million scheme that defrauded a federal COVID-19 relief program, according to a press release received from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Virginia, on Friday.
Carl Pierre, 37, received the sentence in May for helping orchestrate a scam that exploited the Paycheck Protection Program through a fitness center that never opened to the public. His co-conspirators received longer sentences when they faced U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles on Thursday.
The trio’s downfall began with BYNDfit, a Washington fitness center they claimed to be operating but never actually opened to customers, according to court documents.
“Between April 2020 and June 2021, Rahbar, Macaulay, and Pierre submitted PPP loan applications in which they inflated the number of BYNDfit employees to increase their purported payroll costs and obtain more money. The conspirators submitted purported payroll summaries that listed people who did not work for BYNDfit, including local students whose only interaction with BYNDfit was providing their name and personal identifying information to BYNDfit at a career fair. In support of the applications, the conspirators also submitted fabricated tax forms.
Using the same type of misrepresentations about the number of employees, Rahbar obtained four additional PPP loans on behalf of two construction companies he controlled: AMC Building Group and American Majestic Construction. In total, Rahbar fraudulently obtained at least $3.1 million in PPP loans, and attempted to obtain over $4 million in PPP loans”.
Raymond Rahbar, 44, of Great Falls, was sentenced to 4½ years in federal prison on Thursday. Ryan Macaulay, 36, of Gambrills, Md., received a two-year sentence on Thursday. Both men pleaded guilty to multiple fraud charges related to the scheme, prosecutors said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria sought substantially more jail time. Based on federal sentencing guidelines, prosecutors had recommended 159 months imprisonment for Rahbar and between 63 and 78 months for Macaulay, according to the Washington Business Journal.
Pierre pleaded guilty in September 2024 to conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to serve small businesses struggling during the pandemic. Administered by the Small Business Administration, the program offered loans of up to $10 million based on employee counts and payroll expenses.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kristin S. Starr and Avi Panth, along with former Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Hood. The FBI’s Washington Field Office Criminal Division conducted the investigation.
