For $1,000, a Miami-Dade police employee would run a COVID-19 relief scam for you

The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t cause Miami resident Elisa Rivera to miss any paychecks as a civilian working as a Miami-Dade Police Department administrative officer. But that didn’t stop her from applying for COVID relief money or helping others do it for a fee.

Rivera has missed paychecks since Jan. 24, when she resigned from Miami-Dade PD. That was exactly one month before she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

“It saddens me to learn that one of our former civilian employees violated the core values of the Miami-Dade Police Department,” said Alfredo Ramirez III, the Miami-Dade Police Director until his elevation Tuesday to Miami-Dade Chief Public Safety Officer. “We will fully cooperate with the U.S. Attorney’s Office with their investigation.”

Rivera gets sentenced on May 3. Her co-conspirators, one of whom is from Cherokee County, Georgia, aren’t named in her guilty plea paperwork, indicating they haven’t been convicted of anything yet and might not be charged.

Rivera’s Cherokee County cohort submitted an Economic Impact Disaster Loan (EIDL) application to the Small Business Administration on July 3, 2020, for the fictional business “Elisa Rivera.” The application claimed Elisa Rivera owned her eponymous business since it began on March 1, 2017, and that it had 12 employees and gross revenues of $325,446 for the 12 months before Jan. 31, 2020.

The business didn’t exist. But the SBA sent a $10,000 advance on July 6, 2020, and $61,200 in loan proceeds on July 13, 2020.

Having been assisted in such a fraudulent manner, Rivera offered to do the same for others ready to fib about businesses that didn’t exist. The only change would be that they would try to get only the $10,000 advance.

“In exchange for submitting these fraudulent EIDL applications to the SBA, [Rivera] charged applicants a fee of up to $1,000 each,” her admission of facts says.

This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 6:00 AM.

David J. Neal

Miami Herald

305-376-3559

Since 1989, David J. Neal’s domain at the Miami Herald has expanded to include writing about Panthers (NHL and FIU), Dolphins, old school animation, food safety, fraud, naughty lawyers, bad doctors and all manner of breaking news. He drinks coladas whole. He does not work Indianapolis 500 Race Day.