An indictment was filed last Thursday against a Hanford subcontractor accused of stealing $1.313 million in COVID relief money from the federal government.
Filed in U.S. District Court in Eastern Washington, the indictment charged Wilson Stevenson III, 44, owner of BNL Technical Services, with 11 counts of fraud. The fraud charges carry maximum sentences of up to 30 years. Stevenson and BNL are based both in Richland, Wash., and Nashville, Tenn. BNL Technical provides extra staffing for Hanford’s contractors.
“COVID-19 relief programs quickly ran out of money due to the number of people and businesses that requested funding, which meant that some deserving small businesses were not able to obtain funding to keep their businesses in operation during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Vanessa Waldref, U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington, said in a press release.
Stevenson applied for several loans totaling $1.313 million between April 13, 2020 and August 5, 2021 under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which is part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The money was earmarked for small businesses to enable them to meet payrolls and some other specific expenses as a measure to counteract economic fallout from the pandemic. The loans are forgivable in most circumstances.
However, BNL continued to receive payments from the U,S. Department of Energy for its Hanford work and did not need the PPP money, the indictment said.
Instead, Stevenson allegedly used the PPP money to pay his and some family members’ credit card debts, which totaled about $155,500. Meanwhile, Stevenson funneled a good chunk of the loans for his own use in Nashville, the indictment said. He then requested the PPP loans to be forgiven.
In February 2022, Waldref’s office and other federal law enforcement agencies created a COVID Fraud Strike Force.
BNL is one of two Hanford-area companies to be charged with COVID relief fraud.
HPM Corp., based in Kennewick, and its owner Hollie Mooers obtained a CARES loan of $1.3 million, which they did not have to pay back. The Mooers transferred the entire loan from an HPMC business account to their personal account. They eventually paid almost $3 million to the federal government in a settlement agreement. They then sold the company, which had been barred from doing business with the federal government.
