Two Miami PD employees admitted committing two COVID-19 relief frauds worth $50,000
Two full-time Miami Police Department civilian employees each pleaded guilty to wire fraud after each committed her own version COVID-19 relief fraud.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the guilty pleas of Miami Gardens’ Keandra Carter and North Miami-Dade’s Shena Haslem at the same time Tuesday, although Haslem’s guilty plea was last week and Carter’s was last month. Carter’s sentencing is scheduled for May 5. Haslem, sister of longtime Miami Heat player Udonis Haslem, will be sentenced on May 28.
Keandra Carter’s business that wasn’t
According to Miami police, Carter was a public service aide from Sept. 24, 2013 through Dec. 11, 2023. But as businesses started to apply for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, part of the U.S. government’s COVID-19 relief program, Carter conjured her company-on-paper “Kendra Carter.”
Her guilty plea says she sent in a PPP application with fraudulent tax paperwork that claimed her eponymous business of which she was the sole owner had a gross income of $1.1 million in 2019.
“As a result of this false and fraudulent application, [Carter] obtained approximately $20,833 in PPP Ioan proceeds from Customers Bank that were electronically deposited in [Carter’s] Bank of America account,” Carter’s guilty plea says.
The deposit used interstate wire communications, putting it under the charge of wire fraud. Carter’s plea deal says with the amount of money involved, Carter’s clean record and other factors, both prosecution and defense both will ask that Carter be sentenced to the low end of the zero to six months sentencing guidelines.
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Haslem, hair and security
In over 17 years with the Miami police, Haslem worked as a clerk, a CIS Desk Operator and police staffing specialist before resigning last month.
Her guilty plea says, for her scheme, she partnered with someone whose business she patronized. The person called “Individual 1” in the guilty plea prepared and submitted the PPP and Emergency Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) applications for Haslem for a cut of the fraud take.
First, on July 6, 2020, Haslem submitted an EIDL application for “Sheana Haslem,” a hair and nail salon business with 15 employees and $89,993 gross revenue from Feb. 1, 2019 through Jan. 31, 2020. That got a $10,000 EIDL advance.
Haslem submitted a PPP application on Feb. 27, 2021 for another business named “Sheana Haslem,” this one a “security officer” business. False 2019 tax forms said the company’s average monthly payroll was $8,333 but no expenses so the gross income and net profit were $102,874.
This got $20,832 electronically deposited into Haslem’s Wells Fargo account.
Similar to the reasons above for Carter, both sides will recommend Haslem be sentenced toward the low end of zero to six months in federal prison.
The cases were investigated by the Small Business Assocation’s Office of the Inspector General and the FBI’s Miami Area Corruption Task Force, which includes Miami police internal affairs officers. Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Stamm worked on both prosecutions. AUSA Sara Klco worked on Carter’s case.
