TUTWILER — Bailey’s Trucking LLC and Xavier J. Bailey have been ordered to pay over $482,000 by a federal judge who found that Bailey falsified statements to obtain federal Paycheck Protection Program funds.
Online news outlet FreightWaves reported Sept. 20 that senior U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson’s opinion noted that Bailey sought a PPP loan that he “didn’t qualify for by submitting false claims, certifications and information in order to obtain the $143,738 loan.”
“[Bailey’s] claims were ‘factually false’ as the information provided to the government for the loan and reimbursement were inaccurate,” Davidson wrote, according to the FreightWaves account.
Davidson ordered Bailey and Bailey’s Trucking to pay almost $455,313 in treble damages under the False Claims Act, which permits the U.S. government to recover up to three times the amount of actual damages. He also ordered Bailey to pay a civil penalty of $27,015 for two violations of the False Claims Act.
A federal civil lawsuit in June 2022 charged that Bailey’s “misrepresented its payroll costs, which were used in calculating the actual amount of the loan secured through the PPP program, part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act enacted to help struggling businesses meet expenses.
