Culver City Restauranteur Pleads Guilty to Fraudulently Obtaining More Than $4 Million in COVID 19 Business Relief Loans

SANTA ANA, California - A Culver City man and restauranteur who owns a hospitality company that has developed restaurants and hotels in California, Tennessee, and Kentucky pleaded guilty today to fraudulently obtaining more than $4 million COVID-19 economic-relief loans.

Philip Frederick Camino, 45, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

During the spring of 2020, Congress created these two federal programs to provide financial assistance to Americans suffering economic harm because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to his plea agreement, Camino owns several companies based in Hollywood, Westwood, Studio City, and Beverly Hills as well as in Arizona. From April 2020 to April 2021, Camino submitted and caused to be submitted false and fraudulent applications to the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) and banks for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL).

In these applications, Camino made false statements, including inflating the number of employees to whom were paid wages, providing fictitious federal tax forms that were never filed with the IRS, and falsely certifying that the loan proceeds would be used for permissible business purposes.

Relying on Camino's false information, the SBA and lenders approved and funded these loans, the proceeds of which were transferred to a bank account under Camino's control. Camino used most of the fraudulently obtained money for expenses prohibited under the PPP and EIDL programs, including paying more than $100,000 in kickbacks to his accomplice.

For example, in June 2020, Camino emailed a bank containing false documentation to support a $144,270 fraudulent PPP loan application on behalf of a company controlled by a co-conspirator.

In total, Camino submitted more than 20 fraudulent loan applications from which he obtained more than $4 million.

United States District Judge Fred W. Slaughter scheduled a March 6, 2025, sentencing hearing, at which time Camino will face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI, and IRS Criminal Investigation are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorney Jennifer L. Waier of the Santa Ana Branch Office is prosecuting this case.

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