South Florida beauty-spa owner denies using pandemic loans to lease Bentley SUV and go on shopping spree
When COVID-19 swept the country in 2020, Cassandra Yolanda Clarke joined millions of small-business owners in asking the federal government for a helping hand.
Clarke, the owner of beauty-treatment businesses, applied for two government-backed loans to cover the payroll for her two companies, Narotique Med Spa in Pembroke Pines and Narotique Beauty Bar in Miami Gardens — or so she claimed on her applications.
It turned out, federal prosecutors say, Clarke was scamming the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, using false information about her companies’ employees, wages and tax documents on loan applications that were submitted through an “accomplice.” According to an indictment filed this week, Clarke fraudulently received a pair of whopping, SBA-guaranteed loans: One for $420,552 and another for $431,342 between April and August of 2020.
Clarke, 45, of Miramar, went on a shopping spree with the ill-gotten windfall, according to the indictment. She bought luxury items at Bal Harbour Shops and leased a Bentley Bentayga — the base MSRP for the sport utility vehicle is $168,500. Such high-end vehicle purchases have been common practice among PPP loan-fraud offenders, as documented in a Miami Herald story published this year.
Clarke was arrested on Wednesday and charged with wire fraud and money laundering. She was granted a $100,000 bond by a magistrate judge in Fort Lauderdale federal court. Her arraignment is scheduled for Dec. 20.
On Friday, Clarke told the Miami Herald that she plans to fight the charges, saying she did not use the PPP loan proceeds for her personal use. In particular, Clarke said, she began leasing the Bentley in 2019, the year before the pandemic struck.
“That allegation in the indictment is totally false,” she told the Herald.
The SBA, working with financial institutions around the country, was in charge of the nearly $800 billion PPP loan program approved by Congress as part of the CARES Act in 2020. By the end of the fiscal year in September 2023, federal prosecutors brought fraud charges against nearly 3,200 defendants nationwide — including about 250 in South Florida, the worst-hit region.
Clarke is the latest to be charged with PPP loan fraud in South Florida.
The indictment, filed by prosecutor Jonathan Bailyn, alleges that Clarke made three significant bank withdrawals after she received the two SBA-backed loans, which were approved by private lenders.
In August 2020, Clarke obtained a cashier’s check for $18,000, with “two and a half months salary” written in the memo line, from an account at a Wells Fargo.
In June 2020, she withdrew $64,000 from another account at Wells Fargo, the indictment says. The following month, she also withdrew $42,000 from an account at Bank of America.
The indictment accuses Clarke of “diverting the loan proceeds for her personal use and benefit.”
