Three Years in Prison for Business Owner in CU-Related PPP & Mortgage Fraud
Jason Lee Rannfeldt uses $262,000 in PPP loans from Vibrant CU for a down payment on a GreenState CU mortgage.
An Iowa business owner, who used Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans he got from a credit union and a bank to pay for a $600,000 mortgage with another credit union and then falsely declared bankruptcy, will spend the next three years in a federal prison.
After U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger sentenced Jason Lee Rannfeldt of Davenport, Iowa on May 28, he was immediately taken into custody to begin his prison term, court filings showed. He also was ordered to pay $291,875 in restitution and a $500 assessment.
Rannfeldt pleaded guilty to two felony counts of bank fraud, one felony count of false statements to a financial institution, one felony count of money laundering and one felony count of false bankruptcy declaration, according to court documents.
Rannfeldt, who owned five different businesses, obtained or attempted to obtain an estimated $1.5 million in PPP loan funds from a credit union and four banks after he submitted false and misleading information about his businesses’ income and payroll information, including phony tax documents, to credit unions and banks on 11 loan applications.
In 2021, the $1 billion Vibrant Credit Union in Moline, Ill., approved four PPP loans for Rannfeldt’s businesses that led to an actual loss of approximately $262,000 according to court documents.
He also admitted that he used some of these PPP funds for a $196,000 down payment to secure a $588,760 mortgage loan from the $11.1 billion GreenState Credit Union in North Liberty, Iowa. The sale price for the home was $785,000.
Rannfeldt applied for $1.2 million in PPP loans from Cross River Bank, Quad Cities Bank & Trust, Northeast Bank and U.S. Bank. Cross River approved his PPP loan for $29,542, but his other PPP loan applications were not approved.
What’s more, after Rannfeldt filed for bankruptcy in December 2022, he made false statements and omissions, according to court documents.
Following his prison term, Rannfeldt will be required to complete five years of supervised release, court filings showed.