DC pastor used COVID relief funds to buy 39 cars and a house

CBS Baltimore reports that Rudolph Brooks Jr., pastor and founder of the Kingdom Tabernacle of Restoration Ministries, has been charged with federal wire fraud for falsifying documents relating to his application for the funds. He allegedly used money he received from the government to buy 39 cars and a house in Baltimore.

Pastor Brooks may have more than $2.2 million seized, alongside a 2018 Tesla Model 3 that he is accused of using the relief funds to purchase.

Brooks reportedly obtained the tax-funded financial support after the first coronavirus relief bill was enacted in March 2020. The bill, intended to provide financial assistance to struggling businesses and individuals, provided up to $659 billion in forgivable loans to companies that were impacted by the government's lockdown orders in order to pay their employees.

Brooks, who also owns a car company called Cars Direct by Gavawn HWD Bob's Motors, applied for a PPP loan on behalf of the company in the amount of $1,556,589, and allegedly submitted fraudulent tax forms reporting $724,469 in payments and an additional $7,471,630 in total unemployment payments to employees.

CBS Baltimore found IRS records that show Cars Direct did not make any previous tax filings and had no employees. The state's Department of Labor also possessed no records of the company paying wages to Brooks or any employees.

According to a federal affidavit, Brooks also submitted a COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) prior to the PPP loan application, which directly contradicted information he submitted to obtain the latter loan. In the EIDL loan, he listed the gross revenue for Cars Direct as well below the numbers he would later put in the PPP application, at a mere $148,000.

The PPP loan was ultimately approved, depositing a million and a half into one of Brooks' bank accounts. He then reportedly opened another bank accounted and named it Payroll by BJM but did not use it for payroll. He is accused of using that bank account, and others, to transfer PPP loan money.

"'Records revealed that Brooks allegedly used the PPP funds for' personal expenditures including credit card bills, purchases at restaurants, retail stores, grocery stores, and automotive auctioneers, and mortgage payments for Brooks' Cheltenham residence," local news reported.

"Brooks also allegedly used the PPP funds to buy 39 use automobiles, including a 2017 Mercedes Benz S Class, two 2017 Infinity Q50s, a 2015 Cadillac Escalade, a 2005 Bentley Continental, a 2018 Tesla Model 3, a 2014 GMC Yukon XL and several older model luxury vehicles."