Alamogordo man pleads guilty to COVID loan fraud

An Alamogordo man has pleaded guilty to defrauding the federal government of more than half a million dollars through fraudulent COVID-19 pandemic loans, the U.S. District Court said on Monday.

Scott Spiro, 62, pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud, three counts of making false statements to a financial institution and two counts of money laundering. He faces up to 30 years in prison at sentencing, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office District of New Mexico.

Court records state that from April 2020 to December 2021, Spiro "devised a scheme to defraud, and to obtain money by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises by filing false and fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans."  

In order to secure the loans, Spiro made several shell companies that were not real businesses and had no employees, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court on Friday. Some of those fraudulent companies include Scott A. Spiro JD, LLC, Pacifica Law Clinic, LLC, Spiro Enterprises of NM, LLC, Pacifica Funding Corporation, and Accounting Advisors — which all listed Spiro as the owner. 

"Using these entities, Spiro submitted multiple fraudulent loan and loan forgiveness applications to lenders and the Small Business Administration," the U.S. District Attorney's Office said. 

In one case, Spiro used Pacifica Funding Corporation, which he claimed had 12 employees and had gross revenues over $1.8 million, to ask for a $150,000 loan, according to the complaint. Spiro submitted multiple falsified documents including false profit reports and false Internal Revenue Service (IRS) forms to secure the loan.

Between June 2020 to August 2020, Spiro received two separate EIDL loans totaling to nearly $160,000, the complaint states.

Spiro, after receiving the loans, would file PPP loan forgiveness applications for the various loans he had been rewarded. In many of those applications, he was awarded full forgiveness for several of the loans, according to the complaint. 

Upon conviction, Spiro was ordered to forfeit any property which was "derived from proceeds traceable to the offenses," the complaint states. He was ordered to surrender two houses, one in Ruidoso and one in Alamogordo.

Nakayla McClelland covers crime and breaking news. Reach her at nmcclelland@abqjournal.com or at 505-823-3857.